Ballistic missiles fly at US base from Iran in dramatic escalation

Iran fired two ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-British military base in the Indian Ocean, in a dramatic escalation that revealed Tehran's weapons can reach far beyond what its own foreign minister claimed last month, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Neither missile hit the remote island base, which hosts American bombers, nuclear submarines and guided-missile destroyers roughly 4,000 kilometers from Iran. One failed in flight, and a U.S. warship fired an SM-3 interceptor at the other. It wasn't immediately clear whether the interception succeeded, according to officials familiar with the matter.

The attack comes after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said last month that Iran had deliberately capped its missile range at 2,000 kilometers.

Iran Watch, a nuclear arms monitoring group, has long assessed Iran possesses operational missiles capable of reaching 4,000 kilometers.

Diego Garcia has also been at the center of a separate diplomatic dispute: Britain was negotiating to hand sovereignty of the wider Chagos Islands to Mauritius while retaining the base on a long-term lease. Trump has objected to that arrangement.