Turkey’s defence ministry on Friday said a ballistic missile from Iran had been shot down in Turkish airspace by NATO forces for a third time in the ongoing of the Middle East war.
“A ballistic munition launched from Iran and entering Turkish airspace was neutralised by NATO air and missile defence assets deployed in the eastern Mediterranean,” a ministry statement said.
NATO air defences shot down the first ballistic missile fired from Iran on March 4, with a second intercepted on Monday.
Residents of the southern city of Adana, next to Incirlik, were woken by sirens at 3:25 am (0025 GMT) and several posted footage of a fast-moving object that appeared to be on fire, the Ekonomim business news website reported.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian denied the missile had been fired from Iran in a phone call to Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Since the US-Israeli war on Iran started on February 28, Tehran has retaliated with strikes across the Middle East.
Incirlik is an important NATO facility used by US troops for decades, but which also hosts military personnel from Spain and Poland, its website says.
US troops are also stationed at Kurecik, a base in the central Malatya province, where they man an early-warning radar system NATO describes as a “key element” of its missile shield that can detect Iranian missile launches.
