British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Monday that the security incident at a US-run military air base in England was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Burnham previously said there were strong indications that Iran was linked to the apparent plan last month to attack RAF Fairford air base, which US bombers have used to strike Iran in the ongoing war.
Police have arrested seven men in the investigation into the alleged plot, but all suspects have been released on bail and no one has yet been charged.
“I can confirm our assessment that it was very likely coordinated in Iran, and almost certainly at the direction of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” Burnham told lawmakers. “We will not tolerate these threats on our lands.”
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Dozens of residents near the air base were evacuated from their homes on September 27, as armed police officers and army bomb disposal experts swept through the rural area.
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Police later said they found a quantity of gasoline in three trucks linked to the first five suspects, but no explosives were found.
All the arrested suspects are in their 20s, six of them are British nationals while one holds both a British and Iranian national.
On Monday, the British government summoned the Iranian ambassador to express its dissatisfaction with Iran’s “continued attempts to undermine the security of the United Kingdom and its international partners through its criminal networks, proxy groups and malicious state-backed activities.”
The United States withdrew its bombers from RAF Fairford last week, and the Trump administration said it believes the base faces Iranian threats aimed at killing as many American forces as possible and destroying as many American aircraft as possible.
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