All five suspects arrested near a US-used British air base have been released on bail after testing showed the material in their vans was not viable explosives.
The men, British nationals ages 23 to 25 who live in London, were stopped early Sunday morning close to Royal Air Force Fairford, a base 90 miles southwest of London that the US uses for missions in the Middle East. They remained under investigation Monday with stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others, Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer said.
Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor announced the release at a press conference in London. “To be very clear, this does not mean that the investigation is over,” he said. “They are subject to stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others.”
“They absolutely remain under investigation as we explore multiple lines of enquiry,” Taylor added.
Taylor also said authorities were still looking into possible involvement from a hostile state such as Iran. Iran’s London embassy fired back Monday with a statement rejecting any link to the suspected plot.
“The circulation of such fabricated speculations, particularly in the aftermath of the criminal acts of aggression committed by the United States and the Israeli regime against the Iranian people, will serve no purpose other than to fuel Iranophobia propaganda in the UK,” the embassy wrote. It threatened legal measures if necessary and branded attempts to connect Tehran to the arrests as “unfounded and malicious speculations.”
President Donald Trump said Sunday that the suspects had been on the US’s radar for some time. Reports locally indicated security had been stepped up around the base in recent days.
The arrests followed a tip from a local farmer returning home from a party who spotted three suspicious-looking white vans on a country lane near the base. She noticed that company lettering and a phone number on the side appeared to be fake, and she saw several “Middle Eastern-looking men,” some with masks and balaclavas, scatter and run through the fields toward the base.
A dramatic picture later showed the five men sat in handcuffs on the ground next to armed cops, stripped to the waist over fears about possible suicide vests.
All 85 homes in the nearby village of Whelford were evacuated after the arrests, as a more than 400-yard cordon was set up around the three vehicles. A cordon remained in place Monday around RAF Fairford, which was chosen by the US for long-range missions due to its extended two-mile runway reinforced to support B-1 and B-52 bombers.