Prime Minister Andy Burnham of Britain said on Wednesday that there were ‘strong indications’ Iran played a part in a security incident near a Royal Air Force base used by the United States, the first time the British government has publicly pointed at Tehran.
‘We have been waiting to confirm what we could say, but we can now confirm our belief that Iran played a part,’ Mr. Burnham told Sky News. In a separate interview with the BBC he called the episode at RAF Fairford ‘an ongoing, complex and serious police investigation.’ His statement rested on intelligence gathered during the investigation, two senior intelligence officials briefed on the matter told NBC News.
Iran’s embassy in London said it ‘categorically rejects and strongly condemns’ the suggestion of involvement, calling the speculation, in a statement posted on X on Monday, ‘unfounded and malicious.’
The alert began in the early hours of Sunday, when three white vans appeared to be heading toward the base, in Gloucestershire, about 90 minutes west of London. A resident who called the police said she saw masked men near the vans, which were blocking a road in a village beside the base. Counterterrorism officers declared a major incident and evacuated dozens of homes; residents were allowed back on Monday.
According to one of the officials who spoke to NBC News, two calls alerted the authorities. The first came about 12:45 a.m. Sunday from one of the five men later arrested. The second, about 1:30 a.m., came from a local farmer, whose account the police initially cited as the source of the tip. The Times of London reported on Wednesday that whatever was planned had been foiled when one of the suspects tipped off the police before the group was caught.
Five British men in their 20s, all from London, were arrested at the scene on suspicion of explosives offenses and preparing a terrorist act. After three days of examination with a bomb disposal team, the police said on Tuesday that no explosives or improvised devices had been found in the vans, though officers recovered ‘a quantity of petrol’ and searched properties in London. All five were released on bail on Monday and remain under investigation.
Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, the head of Counter Terrorism Policing, said on Monday that detectives were examining ‘every possible angle,’ including ‘that this may be activity committed by proxies, or individuals either knowingly or unknowingly, working on behalf of a foreign state.’
President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had suggested days earlier that a foreign state could be involved; Mr. Rubio said the incident ‘clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor.’ Mr. Trump also complained about the decision to free the men on bail. ‘How do you give bail to a terrorist?’ he asked reporters, adding of the investigation: ‘A long-standing. Yeah, we were involved in it.’ Mr. Burnham said on Wednesday that the men had been released under the ‘strictest possible bail conditions’ and that the authorities had the case ‘under the strongest grip and closest control.’
Mr. Burnham said he had chaired an emergency security meeting this week and that, with Parliament in recess, he ‘wouldn’t hesitate’ to recall lawmakers if necessary. He said the government had been ‘talking to our counterparts in the United States all week.’
RAF Fairford’s role in the American air campaign against Iran had already made it a target of Tehran’s anger. Earlier this year Britain gave the United States permission to use the base for what Mr. Burnham’s predecessor, Keir Starmer, called ‘specific and limited defensive’ operations against Iran. In July the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told the semiofficial Tasnim news agency that ‘any base used to facilitate aggression against Iranian territory is considered a legitimate target,’ specifically citing bomber flights from Fairford. Officials have not explained what the men in the vans intended to do.