Fifteen US military aircraft have departed Spain’s Rota and Morón bases since the United States and Israel carried out strikes against Iran over the weekend, according to flight paths published on the tracking website FlightRadar24 on Monday.
Morón Air Base is located in Andalusia, approximately 56 km southeast of the city of Seville. The base gets its name from the nearby town of Morón de la Frontera. Naval Station Rota is located on the Bay of Cadiz, between the towns of Rota and El Puerto de Santa Maria in the province of Cadiz (Andalusia).
Spain’s Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, said Madrid would not permit the use of Spanish bases for attacks on Iran. The installations, while jointly operated by Spain and the United States, remain under Spanish sovereignty. Spain has strongly condemned the strikes. ALSO READ: Spain rejects ‘unilateral military action by US & Israel’, but also ‘actions of Iranian regime’.
Flight tracking data indicated that at least seven of the aircraft landed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Britain initially took a similar position, declining to allow its bases to be used for the operation. However, on Sunday Prime Minister Keir Starmer authorised their use, citing the need for ‘collective self-defence’.
Spain’s refusal, alongside the forceful criticism of the US-Israeli action by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, has once again set the country apart from many of its regional partners and risks further straining relations with Washington.
Albares said on Monday that while the government wanted ‘democracy, freedom and fundamental rights for the Iranian people’, it would on no account allow its bases to be used in the ongoing military action.
‘Spanish bases are not being used for this operation, and they will not be used for anything not included in the agreement with the United States or for anything that is not in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations,’ Albares said in an interview with Spanish broadcaster Telecinco.
Defence Minister Margarita Robles said the aircraft involved — mainly aerial refuelling planes such as the Boeing KC-135 ‘Stratotanker’ — are permanently stationed in Spain.
On Saturday, PM Sánchez said Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s offensive was making the world less stable and called for a lasting political solution to the conflict.
He returned to the theme in a speech in Barcelona on Sunday. ‘Today, more than ever, it’s vital to remember that you can be against a hateful regime – as Spanish society is as a whole when it comes to the Iranian regime – and, at the same time, against an unjustified and dangerous military intervention that is outside international law,’ he said.
According to Reuters, FlightRadar24 data showed that nine tanker aircraft left the Morón airbase in southern Spain on Sunday, flying on towards Germany.
The tracking service also recorded two aircraft departing from Rota, a naval base with an airfield, and heading towards southern France, while four additional flights left Rota without their routes being publicly visible.
In a joint statement with France and Germany released earlier on Sunday, the UK said: ‘We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source.’
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José Manuel Albares, ministro de Exteriores, sobre si EE.UU. habría usado las bases de Rota y Morón en esta operación
🗣️”Las bases de uso conjunto, pero de soberanía española, no se van a usar para nada que no esté incluido dentro del tratado ni que esté fuera de la Carta de la… pic.twitter.com/cC5GWRYM1h
— RTVE Noticias (@rtvenoticias) March 1, 2026
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