{"id":2174329,"date":"2026-10-01T16:43:57","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T13:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2174329"},"modified":"2026-10-01T16:43:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T13:43:57","slug":"dual-uk-iranian-national-arrested-over-raf-fairford-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2174329","title":{"rendered":"Dual UK-Iranian national arrested over RAF Fairford incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b57d\/live\/614446e0-bdb9-11f1-b7d8-31573a2bd831.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"AFPAFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
A heavy police presence could be seen near the base after a major incident was declared on Sunday<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A UK-Iranian dual national has been arrested on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts in connection with the incident at RAF Fairford, counter-terror police have said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The 25-year-old man was arrested in Westminster, London. Two properties in the area have been searched.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Five men in their twenties who were arrested near the Gloucestershire airbase on Sunday remain on police bail. All five were UK nationals from London.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Counter-terror police are considering “all possible angles – including foreign state involvement”, the force’s senior national coordinator Vicki Evans said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“The investigation into circumstances surrounding events in Gloucestershire is hugely complex, and our specialist teams are interrogating multiple lines of enquiry,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I’d like to thank the public for their continued support and patience whilst we work through this investigation.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Police had initially given the dual UK-Iranian national’s age as 27 and said a second man had been questioned under caution, but in a later update said that this was not the case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Wednesday there were “strong indications” that Iran played a part in the incident. He did not provide further details, and Tehran has strongly denied any involvement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The five men were arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning after “three suspicious vehicles” were reported travelling towards the base operated by the US Air Force (USAF), sparking a major security incident.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The BBC understands that one of the men had dialled 999 himself, about an hour before a local farmer alerted police to a “large group” of masked men near the vehicles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They were arrested on suspicion of explosives offences and later on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act, before being released on bail on Monday in what police called an “investigative decision” that was “grounded in experience and strategy”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Police said a quantity of petrol but no explosive devices were found during searches of vans near the site.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The group were aged between 23 and 25. Four live in Westminster and one in Camden, and searches of their homes were carried out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that “the hands of a foreign actor” had clearly been involved in the incident at the base, which has been used as a forward operating location by the USAF for decades.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In recent months, US bombers have taken off from the airbase for the Middle East, after the UK approved a US request to use it for what it called defensive strikes on Iran.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cmdx5xw36492o”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b57d\/live\/614446e0-bdb9-11f1-b7d8-31573a2bd831.jpg”] AFP via Getty Images A heavy police presence could be seen near the base after a major incident was declared on Sunday A UK-Iranian dual national has been arrested on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts in connection with the incident at RAF Fairford, counter-terror police have said. The 25-year-old man was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2174329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2174329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2174329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2174329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2174329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}