British police said Tuesday (October 21, 2026) they have rearrested two men on suspicion of assisting Iran’s intelligence service over a suspected plot at a U.S.-run air base in England last month.
Counter Terrorism Policing said the men, a 24-year-old British national and a 25-year-old dual U.K.-Iranian national, were arrested under the National Security Act. One of the suspects was first arrested on September 27, when the suspected plot against the U.S.-run base at RAF Fairford took place. The second suspect was first arrested on October 1. Until Tuesday (October 20) the men had been bailed pending more investigation. In all, more than 50 people have been arrested over Iran-linked plots in the past year, Mr.
Five other men in their 20s were arrested earlier then released on bail pending further investigation. The air base in western England has been used to bomb Iran during this year’s war. Scores of residents were evacuated from their homes near the base as armed police officers and army bomb-disposal experts swarmed the rural area. British authorities have linked Tehran to the incident, which led the U.S. to pull its bombers from RAF Fairford. No one has yet been charged. Last week the head of Britain’s MI5 spy agency warned that both Iran and Russia were expanding their attacks against the U.K., and that the RAF base incident was not unique.
Police later said they had found a quantity of an accelerant — gasoline — in three vans at the site, but no explosives. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the apparent plot was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, or IRGC. Iran has denied involvement, although it has previously said that it considers any base used to attack its territory a legitimate target. Laurence Taylor, head of National Counter Terrorism Policing in the U.K., said detectives are looking at “many lines of enquiry involved in this hugely complex investigation. “This is very much a live investigation, and our evidence gathering continues, but at this time our position remains the same; we consider it highly likely that there is Iranian state involvement,” he said in a statement. “Our investigators are continuing to examine what that level of involvement was and the ambition behind it,” he added. Ken McCallum, who leads the U.K.’s domestic security service, said Tehran is seeking to intensify its attacks in Britain beyond the traditional targets of Iranians opposed to the country’s Islamic authorities. McCallum said.
