Iran is trying to hit military sites in the U.K. and the suspected plot to attack a U.S.-run military air base in September is “not unique,” the head of Britain’s MI5 spy agency said on Tuesday (October 13, 2026).
Scores of residents were evacuated from their homes near the base on September 27 as armed police officers and army bomb-disposal experts swarmed the rural area. Seven men in their 20s have been arrested and released on bail under investigation. Mr. The incident at RAF Fairford “is not unique. There have been other examples, not just in the UK but around the world,” Mr. British authorities have linked Tehran to the incident, which led the U.S. to pull its bombers from RAF Fairford.
Ken McCallum, who leads the UK’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 another “major shift this year has been Iranian ambitions to come at harder targets, like military sites. McCallum said. 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 on Monday (October 12) that the apparent plot was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Iran has denied involvement, although it has previously said that it considers any base used to attack its territory a legitimate target.
