British Counterterrorism Police Make Explosives Arrests Near an Air Base Used for American Strikes on Iran

LONDON, Sept. 27 — Counterterrorism police are leading an investigation after several men were arrested on suspicion of explosives offenses near Royal Air Force Fairford, the British air base used by American forces, prompting a major incident declaration and the evacuation of nearby homes.

Five men sat stripped to the waist on a darkened roadside in the early hours of Sunday, in images of their arrests near the Gloucestershire base from which American bombers have struck Iran. The Daily Mail, which published footage it said a resident of the nearby village of Whelford filmed at 2:10 a.m., reported that officers may have suspected the men were wearing suicide vests.

Gloucestershire Police said residents of Whelford were being moved to a nearby leisure center while “the Army’s specialist explosive ordnance disposal team” examined “a number of vehicles.” “A cordon is currently in place but we’d like to reassure people that we believe this incident is contained,” the force said.

The arrests come amid heightened concern about foreign-state activity in Europe and North America.

Britain designated Iranian and Russian organizations under new state-threat powers in July, and Germany this month blamed Russia for an attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport. No connection between those developments and the arrests near Fairford has been established.

Police have not said what prompted the arrests, whether explosives were found, who the men are, or whether they have any connection to a foreign government.

Andrew A. Michta, a professor of strategic studies at the University of Florida and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, responded to early reports of the arrests on X: “Yet another data point. Nothing ‘hybrid’ about it.”

The police operation was not intelligence-led, the Press Association reported, meaning investigators had not known about any potential plot in advance. Julian Tudsbery, who has lived in Whelford for 30 years, told the agency that a resident had reported three “suspicious vans” in the village in the early hours of Sunday. “Evidently, they phoned the airbase police, who didn’t answer the phone,” he said. “It just rang out so she dialled 999.”

About 30 emergency vehicles, among them police cars, ambulances and fire engines, gathered in the village of Fairford, Reuters reported, as a helicopter flew overhead and armed police blocked the base’s main gate.

The base had been hardening its defenses for weeks.

A woman who has lived near RAF Fairford for the last 50 years told the Press Association, in reporting carried by the BBC, that “very heavy vehicles” had been put across all gates, with “great big concrete walls” placed behind some of them, including on Dunfield Loop and Whelford Road. The Press Association reported that Fairford had been raised to Delta, the highest American force protection condition, and that RAF Lakenheath, in Suffolk, had moved to Charlie, the second highest.

Defense Secretary Wes Streeting said the incident was “being dealt with” and thanked emergency crews who acted “so swiftly.”

Fairford has been a staging ground for American B-1 and B-52 bombers in the war with Iran that began on Feb. 28. In early March an Iranian drone struck RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s base in Cyprus, and later that month the British government authorized Washington to use Fairford to strike Iranian missile sites that were attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz. In July, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that any base used in the strikes would be a legitimate target.

Also in July, Britain outlawed support for the Revolutionary Guards and designated an Iran-linked group it blamed for seven attacks on sites in Britain linked to Jewish and Israeli communities and Persian-language media, among them an arson attack in March on four ambulances belonging to Hatzola, a Jewish volunteer emergency service, in Golders Green, in north London.

As The Bureau reported in May, U.S. prosecutors alleged that Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a commander of the IRGC-aligned Iraqi militia Kata’ib Hizballah, helped coordinate an international campaign targeting American and Jewish interests. The criminal complaint described the group’s claim of responsibility for the London ambulance arson and alleged that al-Saadi circulated videos of it. It also cited a recorded conversation in which he said “our people” were behind attacks in Canada—a reference the FBI interpreted as including the March 10 shooting at the U.S. consulate in Toronto.

Britain also designated the GRU Volunteer Corps, a group it said is controlled by Russian military intelligence. “Iran and Russia are using proxies and thugs to do their dirty work on our shores,” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said at the time.

In Germany, the government this month blamed Russia for an attempted attack on Aug. 4 at Leipzig/Halle Airport, where a drone laden with explosives was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane. Kaupo Rosin, Estonia’s intelligence chief, has dismissed “hybrid warfare” as a euphemism and urged leaders to call the campaign “state-sponsored terrorism,” the Kyiv Independent reported this week. Russia denies conducting hybrid operations against Western countries.

Come back to The Bureau for analysis on this developing story.