Iran unsuccessfully targeted Diego Garcia, the joint UK-U.S. military base in the Indian Ocean, on Friday morning.

The airbase holds enormous strategic value for both the United States and the United Kingdom—so critical that defense officials often describe the prospect of losing it as “unthinkable.” Positioned in the heart of the Indian Ocean, it serves as a major platform for projecting military power across the Middle East, South Asia, and the Indo‑Pacific.

Its vast airfield can accommodate B‑52 bombers, KC‑135 refueling aircraft, and advanced reconnaissance planes, and it played a central role in operations during the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The base also includes a deep‑water port capable of supporting nuclear‑powered submarines and carrier strike groups.

Roughly 3,000 kilometers from the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab‑el‑Mandeb, and the Strait of Malacca, Diego Garcia sits at the crossroads of global commerce. From this position, the US and UK can safeguard vital shipping lanes through which a third of the world’s cargo and two‑thirds of its oil flow.

Home to about 2,500 mostly American personnel, it has supported U.S. military operations from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, the U.S. acknowledged that it also had been used for clandestine rendition flights of terror suspects.

The U.S. deployed several nuclear-capable B-2 Spirit bombers to Diego Garcia last year amid an intense airstrike campaign targeting Yemen’s Houthis.

Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Archipelago, a chain of more than 60 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean off the tip of India. The islands have been under British control since 1814, when they were ceded by France.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Britain evicted as many as 2,000 people from Diego Garcia, so the U.S. military could build the base there.

After long negotiations, the U.K. government struck a deal last year with Mauritius to hand over sovereignty of the islands. Britain would then lease back the Diego Garcia base for at least 99 years.

The U.K. government says that will safeguard the future of the base, which is vulnerable to legal challenges. But the agreement has been criticized by many British opposition politicians, who say giving up the islands puts them at risk of interference by China and Russia.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem & AP)