What do we know about the mysterious attack against an RAF and United States base?

LondonWhat could have been a serious attack against the Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Fairford, used by the United States in its bombings on Iran, has ended, for the moment, in a true English ending: a scare with, for now, more questions than answers. All of it partially resolved thanks to citizen collaboration.

A farmer who was returning to her home around midnight on Sunday came across five men dressed in black and balaclavas. She saw them while trying to access her property via a secondary road, blocked by three white vans.

The Fairford base is located in the idyllic region of the Cotswolds –one of the wealthiest in England–, in the county of Gloucester, about 160 kilometers west of London. Faced with completely unusual activity near the base, she first called the Ministry of Defence police, who did not answer the call. Afterwards, she called the 999 emergency services to report what she had seen. Throughout the early morning, about 85 homes in the surrounding area were evacuated. The neighbors have still not been able to return home.

Five arrested

Five men were arrested on Sunday, suspected of a possible attempted terrorist attack. They can remain in custody for up to fourteen days before appearing in court under the anti-terrorism law. The vans they allegedly drove up to the airbase were inspected by robots from the bomb disposal teams. The search of the vehicles is still ongoing and they have not yet been declared safe for forensic specialists to access. According to information provided by the police this Monday afternoon, the five suspects are British citizens, all from London, and all are between twenty-three and twenty-five years old. Neither Scotland Yard nor the anti-terrorism police have commented on what might have been found in the three vans.

A stroke of luck, only?

Contradictorily, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, stated this Sunday that the detainees "intended to cause great harm" and that they had been "under investigation" for some time.

Could his version and that of the citizen alert be compatible? Specialists claim they are not. Whitehall sources consulted by various British media outlets asserted this Monday morning that it was not an operation directed by intelligence services. According to these sources, in an intelligence operation, the suspects should have been under constant surveillance, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The fact that three vans, with hooded individuals and presumably explosives inside, could get so close to a sensitive military facility would call this version into question.

However, British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting assured this morning, in statements to the BBC, that "the neighbor who raised the alarm only has partial knowledge" of the situation, which suggests, therefore, that there was indeed an intelligence operation underway. Was it just a statement to rule out a possible security failure?

Iran, the possible actor behind it?

The British counter-terrorism police have not yet explained what they know about the five arrested men, nor what evidence they have found against them. The interrogation and analysis of the mobile phones or computers seized from them may allow investigators to determine whether they were acting alone or if they were serving a foreign power or a specific terrorist group. This, in any case, is now the most important question. The first suspicions are directed towards Iran. The British Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, had met last week with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, in the framework of the UN General Assembly in New York and warned him that he would not tolerate "intimidation, threats, or hostile activity on British soil." The head of the Foreign Office reiterated the government's determination to "combat the threat of groups linked to Iran" that allegedly operate in the country, and to whom attacks against various targets, including the Jewish community, are attributed.

The Fairford base is one of the British facilities used by the US armed forces, along with RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk. When the war with Iran began, Washington asked to use British bases for military operations. Initially, London refused, but later the government of Keir Starmer authorized their use for defensive purposes, to attack Iranian missile and drone launch sites that threatened US allies in the Persian Gulf. In principle, they would not have attacked targets located inside Iran from British territory.

In July, Iran warned that any country that allowed the use of its territory or its bases to attack it would become a target. It is in this context that the Iranian lead would gain weight over other hypotheses, such as Russia or jihadist groups.