After the withdrawal from both Egypt and Iraq, and Suez Crisis, it was clear that a command centred on Cyprus could not control units stationed in the Arabian Peninsula, of which there were still many.

249 Squadron) provided first a conventional and then from November 1961, a nuclear striking capability as part of the Baghdad Pact, later the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO).

[5] Akrotiri, along with Nicosia, assumed a very important status, as virtually the sole means for projecting British airpower into the eastern Mediterranean, outside of aircraft carriers.

[6] In August 1970, detachment 'G' of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) arrived at the airfield with Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft to monitor the Egypt / Israel Suez Canal fighting and cease-fire.

Permanent monitoring of the Middle East Ceasefire was undertaken by the 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, known as Operation 'OLIVE HARVEST'.

The Vulcans provided a bomber force for CENTO, one of the three main anti-Communist mutual defence pacts signed in the early days of the Cold War.

Two U-2s are stationed at RAF Akrotiri, and they are still monitoring the ceasefire agreement between the Egypt and Israel, although the present operations in the US Central Command area requires further missions.

[13] Between April 1983 and September 1984, RAF Boeing Chinook helicopters deployed to Akrotiri in support of British United Nations forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

[17] In March 2011, the station was used as a staging base for support aircraft involved in Operation Ellamy, the UK's contribution to the NATO-led military intervention in Libya.

On 30 September 2014, two British Tornados successfully intercepted and attacked ISIS targets of a heavily armed truck, at the request of Iraqi Kurdish fighters.

Matsakis stated "It is outrageous that in the 21st century there are Cypriot villages living under British military rule, neither under their own government's jurisdiction nor under the protection of the EU treaties".

These flights were the topic of acrimonious leaked diplomatic cables between British officials and the American embassy, with David Miliband saying that "policymakers needed to get control of the military".

The British were concerned that the flights over Lebanon were authorised by the Lebanese Ministry of Defence, rather than the entire cabinet, and that the intelligence so gained could lead to the UK being complicit in the unlawful torture of detainees.

After warnings that these issues "could jeopardise future use of British territory", John Rood, a senior Bush administration official, and Mariot Leslie, the Foreign Office's director general for defence and intelligence, became involved.