Last week, a British bomb disposal robot roamed the area near the Royal Air Force (RAF) base at Fairford and 85 homes were evacuated as the threat of an attack appeared imminent. Days later, the United States speedily sent B-1 bombers stationed there, which were used to strike Iran in its ongoing war, back home. About a dozen had been stationed at the air base.
The foiled incident resulted in no charges and the release of five suspects, and subsequently a separate British-Iranian suspect. But the US cited concerns about more potential attacks for its decision to withdraw its fleet. Tehran has denied any link to the alleged plot to target the base.
RAF Fairford was a pit stop for US bombers during the war – but more importantly, it allowed Washington to rapidly unleash intensive strikes on Iran, say analysts. They added that their withdrawal reduces Washington’s ability to rapidly generate and sustain bombing missions, but it will not prevent the US from continuing to strike Iran. The analysts were in agreement that the British base gave the US a faster and more efficient way to sustain strikes on Iran.
The bombers at the Fairford base were officially stationed there for defensive strikes – at the behest of the UK government – and likely had a modest targeting list, said Christoph Bergs, an analyst at the world’s oldest defence and security thinktank, the Royal United Services Institute. Thafer explained that while the loss of the bombers does not remove the US’s ability to strike or escalate, “depending on where other assets are positioned, it could make a prolonged bombing campaign more demanding”. The removal of B-1 bombers imposes a number of tactical costs, says Arun Dawson.
He is a PhD candidate at King’s College London’s Freeman Air and Space Institute and a researcher with the UK Nuclear Deterrence Network. Unlike the more modern B-2 stealth bomber designed to make enemy tracking difficult – which has also previously been stationed at RAF Fairford – “the B-1’s principal advantage is its conventional weapons payload – the largest of any aircraft in the US military”, Dawson told Al Jazeera. The B-1 carries at least 34 tonnes of ordnance, he said.
With the B-1s withdrawing, the US may now have to rely more heavily on longer-range missions from the US or other distant bases, increasing flight times, crew fatigue and the need for aerial refuelling, he explained. Still, the US may have made the withdrawal decision based on an examination of risks, said Dawson. Washington may have also calculated that temporarily withdrawing the bombers could protect it for future operations, especially if the US does not expect the Iran war to intensify any time soon, said Dawson.
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