Sixth arrest made in UK terror probe linked to US airbase used in Iran strikes

British counter-terrorism police arrested a 27 year old dual UK-Iranian national in London on Thursday on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts, the sixth person detained in an investigation into suspicious activity near RAF Fairford, a US-run airbase in Gloucestershire that Britain has said may involve Iranian state linked activity.

Police searched two properties connected to the arrest and separately questioned a 26 year old British national under caution, meaning the interview was formally recorded and could be used in any future prosecution. Both men have since been released on bail. The arrests follow a major incident police declared at RAF Fairford on September 28, after which five other men were taken into custody on suspicion of offenses under the Explosives Act; they too have since been released on bail. Investigators said they recovered a quantity of gasoline, an accelerant, inside three vans linked to the earlier suspects near the base, though no explosives were found.

Vicki Evans, senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing, described the investigation as hugely complex, saying specialist teams are working through multiple lines of inquiry. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Britain sees strong indications that Iran played a role in the incident, among the most direct public statements yet from a senior UK official linking the airbase activity to Tehran.

RAF Fairford has served as a staging base for American military operations, including flights tied to US strikes on Iran earlier this year amid the broader war between Washington and Tehran that began in February. That connection has fueled concern among British officials that the suspicious activity near the base may represent an attempt by Iran or Iran linked actors to target infrastructure supporting the American war effort from British soil.

Iran’s embassy in London rejected any suggestion of state involvement, describing attempts to link Tehran to the arrested individuals as fabricated speculation intended to fuel what it called Iranophobia propaganda.

The arrests add to a lengthening pattern of counter-terrorism operations in Britain targeting individuals with alleged ties to Iran. British police have conducted several related operations over the past year and a half, including the arrest of three dual British-Iranian nationals and one Iranian national in an operation earlier this year described by officials as part of an ongoing effort to disrupt malign activity. A separate 2025 operation saw eight men, seven of them Iranian nationals, arrested across two linked investigations, one tied to an alleged plot targeting an undisclosed site. British officials have said MI5, the country’s domestic intelligence service, has uncovered roughly 20 Iran backed plots posing potentially lethal threats on UK soil since 2022, a figure that has shaped increasingly aggressive counter-terrorism posture toward suspected Iranian state activity in Britain.

The current investigation unfolds against a backdrop of heightened tension between London and Tehran tied directly to the ongoing US Iran war, which began after American and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets in February prompted retaliatory Iranian strikes against Gulf nations and a British airbase in Cyprus. With counter-terrorism officials describing the Fairford investigation as still unfolding across multiple lines of inquiry, authorities have given no indication of when the probe might conclude, and the question of direct Iranian state involvement remains formally unresolved even as British officials continue pointing toward Tehran.