On Monday morning it was widely reported that what seemed to be a major planned terrorist attack on an American base in Britain had been narrowly averted. Five men were arrested on suspicion of terrorist offences near RAF Fairford, the base from which US bombers have attacked Iranian missile sites, on Sunday morning.
The incident was widely reported to be an apparent foiled bomb plot. Barrels were found in three vans near the base which newspapers suggested may have contained homemade explosives. Indicating the seriousness of the situation, Prime Minister Andy Burnham held a Cobra meeting on Monday afternoon.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage declared that, “Fairford proves my point on Iran and the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp].” Farage continued: “I have warned repeatedly over the years that the IRGC should be a proscribed organisation.
But within hours, the idea that a major terrorist plot had been foiled started to fall apart. The arrested men were all British nationals in their twenties, not foreigners as Farage had speculated. Moreover they were released on police bail, not even going before a judge. As Nazir Afzal, a former chief prosecutor, pointed out, this indicated the men are not suspected of terrorism.
But the US president had claimed “we have had these men under view for a long time”. And after they were released on bail, Trump doubled down on this, expressing surprise the men were released. “We know everything about them, we would not have released them,” he said, and repeated that the UK had worked “very closely” with the US on the issue.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said: “What happened, what almost happened, what could have happened in the UK over the weekend is a very serious situation. It's one that clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor.”
Meanwhile, the Iranian embassy in London condemned what it called “unfounded and malicious speculations” linking Iran to the incident, saying this would “serve no purpose other than to fuel Iranophobia propaganda in the UK”.