Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador to Tehran, Hugo Shorter, on Thursday and told him it rejected British allegations linking Iran to a security incident near RAF Fairford in south-west England, which is used by US forces, demanding that the British government provide an official clarification of its position.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the deputy foreign minister for political affairs expressed Tehran’s protest during the meeting with the ambassador over what it described as the British government’s destructive approach towards Iran. The ministry said the allegations linked to the Fairford incident were unfounded and that London bore responsibility for its involvement in the war against Iran by making military bases available to US forces.
London links incident to Iran as Tehran rejects allegation
The summons came after British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said his government had “strong indications” that Iran had played a role in what happened near the base over the weekend, while stressing that the case remained the subject of a police investigation he described as complex and serious.
Burnham added that British authorities were working closely with their US counterparts on the investigation, without providing details about what the suspects had intended to do or the evidence on which the British government had based its link between the incident and Iran. He said his government would release further information at a later stage.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected Burnham’s remarks, saying that releasing on bail people described by the authorities as alleged terrorists working for a foreign state revealed, from Tehran’s perspective, a contradiction in the allegations. Addressing the British prime minister, he added that his government was looking for those responsible for the incident in the wrong place.
British police investigate five suspects
Iran’s embassy in London had earlier denied any link between Tehran and the incident, saying it strongly rejected and condemned what it described as baseless speculation attempting to link Iran to what happened near the air base. The incident began in the early hours of Sunday 27 September, when police received a report of three white vans apparently heading towards RAF Fairford in the Gloucestershire countryside.
The authorities detained five British men from London, all in their twenties, on suspicion of offences linked to explosives and preparing to carry out a terrorist act. Police released all five men on bail the following day, subject to what they described as stringent conditions, and confirmed that they remained under investigation. Inspections of the vans found a quantity of petrol, but the authorities found no explosives inside them.
The head of British counter-terrorism policing, Lawrence Taylor, said the suspects’ release did not mean the investigation was over, explaining that investigators were pursuing multiple lines of inquiry. He added that one possibility being examined was that people or agents had acted, knowingly or unknowingly, on behalf of a foreign state.
Police imposed a 400-metre security cordon around the area and evacuated residents from 85 homes in the nearby village of Willford, before allowing them to return after the site had been examined by military experts, forensic teams and explosives specialists. The decision to release the suspects on bail drew criticism from US officials.
US criticism and details of RAF Fairford’s location
US President Donald Trump said he would not have made a similar decision, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the incident as serious and said a foreign party had been involved, without providing evidence or identifying that party. RAF Fairford is located about 160 kilometres west of London and is a British base that hosts US bombers and aircraft.
US forces used the base during military operations against Iran, while Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had previously said in July that any facility used to launch attacks on Iranian territory would be considered a legitimate target for its forces.
