I am off to Pernera Beach on Sunday for two weeks. Let me know if there are any beers calls on the Typhoon Sqn......I need to experience a bit of that good old fashioned drinking culture :E

PN

ARE we building up Aki? If we seek to be a little more discriminatory about how and where we get stuck in, if we're aiming a little closer to home..

BBC News - 'East of Suez': Are UK forces returning?

.. then it might be a good idea to bolster it. It would be somewhere to strategically stockpile too, lots of gear we're recovering from Afghan, instead of selling through Witham Sales, conveniently, just up the road.

Do you still have to `arrive` at AKR before lunch,siesta,so `handbrake/scribblies` can go home/leave....? should be `fun` going around the Armoury,Ops,Mess toting big bags full of NBC kit/Naps tablets/3-4 to a room....

When I was first posted in, we landed mid afternoon and the place was deserted (1984). My informal arrival however, resulted in me being incapable of speech after just a couple of quick hours. Being beasted up and down Cardiac Hill at 0615 the next day taught me a valuable lesson about Keo.

I'm off on holiday to Paphos on Sunday, so if you're going to war, please keep the noise down . . .

@sycamore - no.

Col Bob Stewart has just described Akrotiri as the 'perfect' site from which to launch an attack on Syria. That will go down well!

Guess nobody has to worry about this anymore as Cameron's request was denied.

Rick,

I dont think so - there is more at Akrotiri than a few Brits and a helicopter.

Cameron may not be committing troops/aircraft/ships etc but that doesn't mean he wont offer support in other ways too.

Using Akrotiri for any ops against Syria is mad. Such a thing would allow Assad to justify an attack upon Cyprus. All of it puts the civilian population of Cyprus as risk. Totally mad and totally wrong.

Totally agree RR, but just one scud hitting Akro would be enough for CMD to send in the 4 spare terratorials we have in reserve:D

If you thought your enemy might use an airbase nearby would you wait until he was ready?

Good job we're nobodies enemy.

still... I'm sure nobody would object if we 'lent' Akrotiri to our American cousins. They could install their own defences then!

He could easily use America's ongoing utilization of the SBAs as a pretext for attacking Cyprus, whether the UK were involved in military action against Syria or not. And since when did he need any justification to attack civilians?

Which would give Cameron the justification to get involved ('Unprovoked Attack on soverign British territory') and justify invoking NATO mutual assistance?

I think its stupid to give Assad any excuse to hit Cyprus.
Does the government of Cyprus not have some considerable say in what we/the US can and cannot do from the bases there?

Musing about Akrotiri
 

While the bogeyman in Damascus might well fancy a pop at Akro, I fail to see how that could possibly assist his continued survival. Would that not invoke a NATO response of quite some significance, which would rather defeat the object - if there is one ?

I find myself wondering if there's an element of 'Good cop - bad cop' in play, for if M. Assad finds he wants an 'out', I'm confident he'd rather have Britain as an intermediary than someone from China or Russia.....and so might his wife.

This is getting close to the last opportunity for Bashir al-Assad to cut a deal, and I do hope he's rather more rational than Gaddafi.

Nope. Under the Treaty of Establishment, it is British Sovereign Territory. Besides, given the number of Russians and Russian interests on the island of Cyprus, even the deranged Assad is not going to risk lobbing a scud in that direction.