Live updates as US, UK & France launch Syria air strikes after chemical attack

Cyprus ‘had no prior briefing’

Cyprus distanced itself on Saturday from Britain’s air strikes on Syrian targets, announcing it had no prior briefing or involvement within the slide launched from a British sovereign air mistaken on the Mediterranean island.

Four Royal Air Pressure Twister jets from the Akrotiri mistaken in Cyprus fired Storm Shadow missiles at a navy facility cease to Homs the place it used to be assessed that Syria had stockpiled chemical substances, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said.

“Cyprus didn’t private any participation in this operation and prerequisites of beefy security exist in our nation,” Cypriot authorities spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said in an announcement.

“The Authorities of the Republic of Cyprus private been monitoring the venture from the first moment, on the other hand, Cyprus didn’t acquire any prior briefing,” he said.

Neither the airspace of Cyprus, or its flight files space – a gigantic swathe of eastern Mediterranean airspace – used to be dilapidated, he said.

“We hope that it can ensuing from this truth be that you just would disclose for navy operations to be kept a ways off from in Syria and that sources of hazard in this neighboring nation will be addressed with quiet methodology and thru dialogue.”

Britain retains two sovereign bases in Cyprus, a colony until independence in 1960.

There are about three,one hundred British troops on the island.