Armed British police arrested five men overnight into Sunday in a village beside RAF Fairford, the Gloucestershire air base American bombers fly to Iran from, and counter-terror detectives now hold them on suspicion of preparing an act of terrorism.
Gloucestershire Police took a call at 12:45am about three suspicious vehicles heading toward the base. Officers stopped the vans at Whelford, a village that backs onto the runway, and arrested the men under the Explosives Act. Detectives added the terrorism arrest later in the day. Photographs from the roadside show the five sitting shirtless in the dark.
Police declared a major incident, put a 400-metre cordon around the vans and moved about 85 households to a leisure centre while Army bomb-disposal teams sent a robot in to examine the vehicles. By mid-morning the force said it believed the incident was "contained." Counter Terrorism Policing took the case; its senior national coordinator said the investigation was "in the early stages" and the five remained in custody. Police have named no one, given no ages, no nationalities, and no target.
Trump filled that gap himself. Speaking to reporters in Chicago on Sunday, he called the arrests "an amazing job," said the men had been "under investigation" and "under view for a long time," and said they "were looking to do big damage." The Press Association reported the opposite from the British side: the operation was not intelligence-led, and investigators knew of no plot in advance. Trump or the British police have it wrong, and the answer decides whether Sunday was a foiled attack or a lucky stop — and it turns on what Fairford has been doing since March, and on the day Tehran named the base.
