President Donald Trump criticised the UK’s move to release on bail five men held over an alleged terror plot against a Royal Air Force base used by the US for strikes against Iran, as British police continue to investigate foreign links to the incident.
“I’m surprised that they released them, I wouldn’t have done that,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
The decision to release the suspects sowed confusion about an incident that authorities had only a day earlier described as a serious attempted attack disrupted at a late stage.
On Sunday, Trump had praised the arrests near RAF Fairford, which he said had prevented “big damage” to a facility that has served as a key launching pad for US airstrikes on Iran.
An investigation found no viable explosives at the scene of the men’s arrest, a UK official said separately on Monday, confirming a report by the Daily Mail newspaper. The official asked not named while discussing an ongoing investigation.
The five men, who were all British nationals aged between 23 and 25, were released hours before a legal deadline prevented them from being held without formal charges. Counter Terrorism Policing chief Laurence Taylor said the investigation would continue despite the decision to let the men out of custody.
“This does not mean the investigation is over,” Taylor told reporters on Monday afternoon. “They are subject to stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others. They absolutely remain under investigation as we explore multiple lines of inquiry.”
Taylor said police were investigating whether the incident involved “activity committed by proxies or individuals, either knowingly or unknowingly, working on behalf of a foreign state.”
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said separately that he would break from his schedule at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool to convene an emergency security meeting to discuss the case. Top cabinet ministers used their speeches from the conference floor to reassure voters that the threat was under control.
“It is a reminder that at a time of heightened threat we must all remain vigilant,” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who is responsible for domestic security, told the conference. “And to all those who mean us harm and plot violence on our soil, let this be a reminder: You will never defeat us.”
Mahmood said the area around the base in Gloucestershire, England, had been deemed safe for residents to return. Bloomberg reported earlier Monday that UK authorities had been closely monitoring increased threats to the base and had tightened security at the site before the incident.
RAF Fairford serves as the preferred bomber forward operating location in Europe for the US Air Force Global Strike Command. Burnham in July approved the use of the base by the US for “defensive strikes” against Iran, continuing the policy of his predecessor, Keir Starmer.
The Iranian Embassy in London said it “categorically rejects and strongly condemns” what it dismissed as “unfounded and malicious” attempts to link the case to Iran. Such speculation would “serve no purpose other than to fuel Iranophobia propaganda in the UK,” the embassy said in a statement posted on the social media platform X.
Trump on Sunday praised the UK for quick action, suggesting that the individuals involved had been being monitored. “We had them under view for a long time,” he said.
However, a local farmer told British media that she had seen a group of men wearing balaclavas near the base just after midnight on Sunday and called the police, raising questions about whether the alleged plot was on the radar of the security services.
While British authorities were watching for threats to the base, according to the people familiar with the matter, they still credited the member of the public with alerting police to the suspects’ presence near the sensitive facility on Sunday morning.
“We are considering this from every possible angle,” Taylor said.
