Australia’s servicemen and women are “safe and accounted for” after Iran struck an air base used by Australian forces near Dubai, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said overnight Monday.
An unmanned aerial vehicle struck the Al Minhad Air Base on the first night of the war but no Australian personnel were injured, Marles was cited as saying by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The base is situated some 25 miles outside of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
There are currently around 100 Australian Defence Force personnel stationed across the Middle East, with most deployed in the UAE.
ADF troops have been using Al Minhad as an operational headquarters since 2003, preserving a smaller force since the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, ABC reported.
Marles reiterated his government’s backing for the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, saying that “We’ve been very clear we support the action, having as a core aim denying Iran the ability to acquire a deployable nuclear weapon, which would obviously be a catastrophe for the world,” per ABC.
He added, “It’s very difficult to speculate on how long the conflict will last.”
The U.S. military and Israel Defense Forces launched a preemptive attack against the Islamic Republic on the morning of Feb. 28 to destroy its nuclear and ballistic missile projects.
