I ask people to have a little patience to allow the police and security services the time and space they need to do their job. On the BBC, the British Ministry of Defense declared, Monday September 28, that it was unable to dispel the fog which still surrounds the arrest of five people suspected of having wanted to carry out a terrorist operation on a military base, during the night from Saturday to Sunday. Pressed to shed light on the events which have disrupted the daily lives of residents of villages in the Whelford area, in the west of England, Wes Streeting added that the government would keep "the public informed as soon as possible".
In the meantime, the speculations appear on the front pages of the British press. Most daily newspapers are running headlines about Iran's possible involvement in a foiled "terrorist project" targeting the Royal Air Force (RAF) base at Fairford, also used by the American Air Force. Here are the first elements known in this case.
Residents raised the alarm
The police intervened after receiving a call, around 12:45 a.m. Sunday, reporting "three suspicious vehicles which appeared to be heading towards the air base", said a spokesperson for the British counter-terrorism police, in charge of the investigation. The identity of this witness has not been revealed. A resident spoke to the press on Monday morning, claiming to have raised the alarm a little later in the evening. This witness, a farmer, explained that she contacted emergency services after noticing that access to her farm, as well as the road, were blocked by "three white vans", when returning from a party, around 1:30 a.m.
“Nearby, I saw a group of masked men with hoods on their heads,” she told the BBC. “When they saw me, they fled, some into the fields and others towards the neighboring village. I understood that something unusual was happening,” she continued. “It seems that someone failed in their mission,” she surmised, “stunned” to have had to intervene, while the Fairford military base was under close surveillance.
"Knowing that the military base is under a high security alert level, I immediately called the police. In vain. So at 1:36 a.m., I called for help and 10 minutes later, there were armed police officers throughout the village."
A farmer from Gloucestershire
at the BBC
Quoted by the BBC, Defense Minister Wes Streeting thanked citizens who, like this farmer, showed “vigilance”. However, he denied his accusations of a possible failure of the security services. She “only has a partial vision” of the situation, he responded, announcing that he would not comment further on the ongoing investigation.
For his part, American President Donald Trump assured that the five men arrested during the night had been “under surveillance for a long time”. “They were looking to cause major damage (...) and we got them,” he told the press. At this stage, the British government has not confirmed that the arrest of the suspects was linked to any joint operation between London and Washington, with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham calling on X to "not speculate" while the investigation is ongoing.
The five men arrested were released on bail, counter-terrorism police announced on Monday. “This does not mean that the investigation is over,” said the head of the anti-terrorism police, Laurence Taylor. The movements of the five men and “their contacts with other people” remain “subject to strict conditions”, he added. The anti-terrorist police assure that they are “exploring multiple avenues”, including that of the involvement of a “foreign state”.
Iran is singled out
“We will always defend ourselves against those who want to harm us,” commented British Foreign Minister Ed Miliband on Monday from the Labor Party Congress. Adding that the UK must be prepared to "deal with" any security threats, he said London would act "against Iran's proxies". During an interview in New York three days earlier with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, the head of British diplomacy declared that the United Kingdom would not tolerate "any intimidation, threat or hostile activity on British soil" from states or organizations which act in the interests of the Islamic Republic throughout the world.
No information has been released regarding the profile of the five people arrested. Their arrest near such a sensitive location raises the question of a possible link with Tehran. If this air base has already been used by the American army for operations during the Gulf War in the early 1990s and the Iraq War of 2003, the United Kingdom again authorized the United States to use the premises, in March, as part of its "specific defensive operations targeting Iran". It thus hosts bombers and other American aircraft used in the Middle East to destroy Iranian missiles.
"With [the American operation entitled] 'Epic Fury' the situation has changed," said Tristan Wilkinson, a municipal councilor in the region, interviewed by AFP. “The local community and authorities have demonstrated increased vigilance.” “We knew that Fairford Air Force Base was operating at a high level of security,” recalled the farmer who raised the alarm. “We had noticed some activity over the last few days from people who I thought might be plainclothes police,” she told the BBC.
These suspicions come as the British Home Office has in the past accused Iran of using intermediaries to carry out criminal activities on British territory. For Nigel Inkster, a former senior official of the British secret service (MI6), the involvement of Iran, if not established, "is a possibility, given the role played by the Royal Air Force in the war [led by the Americans] in Iran". According to this expert interviewed by the BBC, the ongoing investigations, the questioning of suspects and especially the work of "the intelligence community in the broad sense, not only in the United Kingdom but among their allies and partners" should be able to shed light on this point. Iran, for its part, “categorically” denied any involvement in this affair.
The sector is still heavily monitored
In Whelford, a town located less than 2 km from the Fairford base, more than 80 people were evacuated early Sunday morning. During the day, images filmed by helicopter showed the presence of mine clearance robots near the three white vans parked at the side of the road. However, “there are a lot of unanswered questions,” noted Nigel Inkster. The former spy thus recalled on the BBC that no information had been given at this stage concerning the presence of "viable" explosives on board the vehicles or on "the level of preparation" of the suspects. Under UK counter-terrorism law, counter-terrorism police can detain them for fourteen days for questioning.
Around the Fairford military base, evacuated residents were not yet allowed to return to their homes on Monday morning, while the press was still kept at a distance by a police cordon. And this while Gloucestershire Police declared on Sunday that the ongoing incident was now “under control”.
