The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said there are “strong indications” that Iran played a role in an alleged security incident at an airbase used by the United States, prompting a forceful denial by Tehran. Burnham told the BBC broadcaster on Wednesday that investigations into the suspected plot at the Royal Air Force base in Fairford were ongoing. Five British men in their 20s were arrested near the base on Sunday, on suspicion of “terrorism” and explosives offences.
They were all released on bail a day later. But the prime minister said he would “update people more in due course”. Burnham’s comments marked the first time a British official had publicly linked Iran to the events at the base.
Iran, however, has strongly denied any involvement in the incident and the country’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, hit back at Burnham’s allegations. You’re barking up the wrong tree.” The RAF base 160km west of London has been used by US bombers during decades of conflicts in the Middle East, including the US and Israel’s war on Iran, which began in February. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has previously said that it considers any base used to attack its territory a legitimate target.
After three days of investigations, including using a bomb disposal team, police said Tuesday they had found no explosives in the vehicles, but they had retrieved a “quantity of petrol”. Top US officials have meanwhile criticised the decision to grant the suspects bail, with President Donald Trump saying “I wouldn’t have done that” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying a lot of people were “disturbed” by the move. Laurence Taylor, the head of British counterterror policing, said on Tuesday that the suspects remain under investigation and the decision to grant bail was grounded in “experience and strategy”.
He said a line of inquiry is whether the suspected offences were committed by “proxies or individuals, either knowingly or unknowingly, working on behalf of a foreign state”. Adding to the intrigue around Sunday’s events, The Times reported that one of the men called emergency services shortly before being arrested in the early hours. Police declined to comment on whether one of the suspects had made the call.
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