The USA insists on the "foreign" plot behind the alleged attempted attack on a British military base

LondonThe United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, insisted early this Tuesday on the theory of a foreign hand behind the incident that took place over the weekend in the vicinity of the RAF Fairford air base, 160 kilometers west of London, in the idyllic Cotswolds region. Speaking to the Fox network, and without wishing to go into much detail, Rubio asserted that "it is a situation in which there is clearly the hand of a foreign actor."

An actor that, according to these insinuations and other reports in the British press over the last 48 hours, could be Iran. Not for nothing, the Fairford base has been used by the United States Air Force in the bombings on the territory of the Islamic republic following the war against the regime of the Ayatollahs, initiated by Washington and Tel Aviv on February 28. Initially, London prohibited it, but a month later, following the pressures, and even humiliations, from Trump to the then-British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, the United Kingdom ended up authorizing Washington to make use of it in a way that London described as "defensive operations."

The Iranian embassy in the United Kingdom categorically rejected this Monday any involvement in the alleged attempted attack. However, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran issued a statement on July 23, while the United States was carrying out the thirteenth consecutive day of bombing attacks, in which it stated that any base used by the United States to attack Iran, including RAF Fairford, was a "legitimate target."

Interference in police affairs

On the other hand, the US head of diplomacy stated: "I know many people are uneasy about the news that some of these people [the suspects] have been released on bail while they are being investigated". Rubio thus insisted on the information that the President of the United States himself, Donald Trump, released over the weekend, when, after the arrest of five people near the RAF center and the search of the three vans they were traveling in was made public on Sunday, he asserted that the suspects "intended to cause great harm". Trump also added: "It was a fantastic job. We had them under investigation. We had been tracking them for a long time and we finally caught them".

But, although they remain under investigation, the provisional release of the five suspects this Monday questions, at least partially, the narrative of the US administration. A release that, in any case, even while interfering with the police work of an allied country, Trump also criticized from the Oval Office this Monday afternoon: "I am surprised they let them go. I would not have done it. Look, [the British secret services] have acted very well. They have worked very closely with us. We know everything about them [the suspects]. We would not have released them". Rubio also said that more details of the operation will be known in the coming days.

Despite the statements by Trump and Rubio, what is also quite significant is the police decision by the British authorities to release the five detainees. However, the investigation has not been closed. [The suspects] "are subject to strict conditions regarding their movements and contact with other people. They remain under investigation while we explore various lines of inquiry", stated Laurence Taylor, head of the counter-terrorism unit and assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard.

For now, the alert level at the RAF Fairford base has been raised to the maximum risk level. Meanwhile, the police continue the in situ search of the three white vans that had already been inspected since Sunday by robots from the bomb disposal squad. In his appearance this Monday afternoon, Taylor did not report what had been found.

The British press, however, speculates on the possibility that traces of fertilizers have been found there. And one of the ingredients often used in the manufacturing process is ammonium nitrate, which is highly unstable and, under the right circumstances, can cause an explosion.

It is worth remembering, for example, that on April 19, 1995, the American anti-government extremist Timothy McVeigh detonated a bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in an attack in which 168 people died, including 19 children, and hundreds more were injured. McVeigh, with the help of Terry Nichols, used a truck loaded with a mixture of agricultural fertilizer, diesel fuel, and other chemicals to produce the bomb.