Britain is facing growing calls to withdraw its military bases from Cyprus as locals step up protests against facilities seen as a threat to their security after an unprecedented drone attack on RAF Akrotiri.

Anger over the installations spilled on to the streets of Nicosia, the capital, as protesters chanting “out with the bases of death”, marched to the colonial-era presidential palace on Saturday amid fears of the Mediterranean nation being dragged into the wider Iran conflict.

“They are a danger to our security and should never have been here in the first place,” said Mathaios Stavrinides decrying the existence of bases that were established as part of a negotiated independence deal for the island. “We want them closed.”

The mounting opposition came as the country’s foreign minister, Constantinos Kombos, told the Guardian the Iranian-made drone that hit the airbase had been launched from Lebanon, home to the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah and units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Less than 12 hours after the explosive-packed device crashed into the facility late Sunday, two other combat drones were also intercepted at a distance off the island. They, too, were deployed from Lebanon, 150 miles east of the island.

“Right now it’s a fact that we have to be looking towards the Lebanese front,” said the minister confirming the drones’ provenance for the first time. “We cannot exclude anything from the broader direction of the north-east. We have to be very careful … we have to make sure that the systems in place are covering all possibilities of threat.”

Cypriot officials, who take pride in the neutrality and humanitarian role of an island nation that is also the EU’s closest state to the Middle East, are adamant it is the British bases, not the republic, that have been singled out for attack since the onset of the US-led offensive against Iran.

Nicosia, they say, had repeatedly raised the red flag about the threat posed to the facilities in talks with London beginning last year. The warnings went unheeded.

RAF Akrotiri is the UK’s main forward-mounting post for overseas operations in the Middle East and widely seen as by far the most important slice of territory retained by Britain in 1960 when it held on to 3 % of the island’s landmass in exchange for independence.

“We’ve consistently communicated that the bases could be a target if things move in a specific direction regionally,” Kombos said.

“This is a concern we shared consistently … but the outcome of those conversations is clear in terms of what transpired on Sunday night.”

It was evident, he said, “not everything that could be done was done to the level of expectations that we have, that people living and working in the bases, Cypriots, also have, and I’m sure the British government has as well … but, right now, I want to focus on how the cooperation improves”.

The speedy deployment of warships and air assets from several European states – military support that had arrived at the request of Cyprus – would help bolster defence of the installations, he said.

The UK has also resupplied air defence systems, sending in Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters capable of taking out aerial threats, in addition to “extra fast” F-35 fighter jets flown in last month, but for many the deployment is seen as too little too late.

The destroyer HMS Dragon, which is being repaired and refitted in Portsmouth, is not expected off the shores of Cyprus until the week after next.

“We don’t just want to stockpile assets. We want assets that are useful,” Kombos said. Defence plans were being applied with a whole-of-Cyprus approach and not only focused on military facilities in UK sovereign territory.

Although the protective cordon thrown around the island is itself unprecedented, Kombos said his government would continue to press for Nato membership, long obstructed by opposition from Turkey.

“In the meantime, we are trying to make sure that we have the capacity to be able to link up to the Nato systems and structures as far as possible for someone who is not a member of the alliance.”

With the Cypriot government dealing with the worst security crisis since 1974, when an attempt at union with Greece prompted Turkey to invade, the president, Nikos Christodoulides, has insisted the country has no intention of becoming involved in any military operation, and called for calm.

Late on Friday, the Cypriot defence minister, Vasilis Palmas, revealed that the Shahed-like drone had succeeded in going undetected and penetrating the base because it was flying “at an altitude of a thousand metres and at a speed of 90 to 100 miles”, too low and too fast to be easily picked up by radar.

Anger over the bases has been fuelled not only by lingering resentment over installations seen as remnants of the colonial empire but also the change in narrative over what exactly happened at RAF Akrotiri.

Stavrinides, holding a giant banner proclaiming “Cyprus is not your launch pad, said: “At first we are told it hit a runway, then there’s pictures of a hangar being destroyed, a hanger we then find out is used by American military assets, specifically U-2 spy planes stationed there.

“It’s lie, after lie. Anything they tell us we have to take with an ocean of salt and that’s why these protests will continue.”