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US bombers leave RAF Fairford for home bases after a threat Trump ties to Iran
US Air Force bombers have left RAF Fairford for their home bases after six arrests in a British terror inquiry, over a threat Trump says is linked to Iran. The move protects the aircraft, but Britain keeps the base and an Iran-linked proxy threat that its own officials say was already active.
The Investor · Invest desk
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What happened
- Aviation trackers have logged dozens of B-52 and B-1 bombers at Fairford since the Iran war began, and watched a group of B-1s fly out on Sunday.
- Those held include a dual British-Iranian national arrested in central London last week after a late-September security incident at the base, and all have been bailed.
- British authorities have linked the Fairford incident to Tehran, and Iran has denied any involvement.
- Trump is weighing further options on Iran, including new strikes, after first telling Americans the campaign would last a matter of weeks.
- A US official said the USS Theodore Roosevelt and an amphibious readiness group are heading to the Middle East, where there could be three US carriers by the end of October.
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Why it matters
- exposure Any European ally that takes in US bombers for further Iran strikes would also take on the target status Iran's Revolutionary Guards gave Fairford.
- precedent Trump's stated rule, "if we're going to be threatened, we just move them," means a credible threat on its own can clear US bombers from an allied base.
- contradiction SCMP reports B-1s leaving and five British men arrested near the base, while Fortune's Pentagon source says all bombers went home, so neither the size of the withdrawal nor the size of the plot is settled.
"It costs very little money to move them," Trump told reporters on Monday, straight after asking, "why would I leave them there?" [11]. For the US, I'd take him at his word. A Pentagon official, speaking to Fortune on condition of anonymity, said the bombers went back to their home bases in the United States [1]. They were not sent to another European base. Keeping them at Fairford under heavier guard was the option his question dismissed.
The bombers are leaving an ally's airfield just as more US force goes to sea. A US official said the carrier and amphibious group now heading for the region carry more than 9,000 sailors and Marines between them [16]. They join what Fortune called a sizable US presence already in the Middle East [15].
One reading is that this is a precaution that ends with the British inquiry, after which the aircraft return to a base American bombers have used through decades of Middle East conflicts [8]. A second is that the Iran campaign now runs from US home bases and from ships, with Trump still choosing between what he called "the easy way, or the hard way" [6]. The third is that the threat stays in Britain whatever the aircraft do.
I think the third is closest, because by UK officials' account Iran-linked violence was on British soil before the bombers left. They say proxies linked to Iran have been behind a string of arson and other attacks in Britain and other countries, many aimed at the Jewish community [14]. They have also warned that Tehran could widen its targets in the UK if the Middle East conflicts continue [14]. Trump said moving the planes "sort of alleviates that" [12]. The base they left is still 100 miles west of London [8].
The counter-thesis is that Britain's risk falls too. Iran has said it considers any base used to attack its territory a legitimate target [9], and its Revolutionary Guards had said that of Fairford [3]. On the narrowest reading of that test, an empty base no longer qualifies. If Iran-linked incidents in Britain slow now that the bombers are in the United States, that reading is right and mine is wrong. If they continue, the risk sits with the host.
What to watch
- Charges against any of the people bailed in the Fairford inquiry would put the Tehran link British authorities have drawn on a court record.
- Whether Iran's Revolutionary Guards restate or drop Fairford as a target now that the bombers have gone.