Tehran, Iran – Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the United Kingdom’s attribution of an alleged plot near a military airbase in the town of Fairford to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which it views as part of a greater Western effort. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham told Parliament on Monday that the suspected plot last month against the Royal Air Force base was “highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran” and “almost certainly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard”. Burnham promised action against what he described as Iran-linked “criminal networks” and their financing networks.
The UK announced sanctions against two Iranian nationals over alleged “hostile activity” at RAF Fairford in southern England. It follows an incident around the base, which hosted US military aircraft, in the early hours of September 27, when five British men in their 20s suspected of “terrorism” and explosives offences were arrested. The men were not charged and were released on police bail.
Another two men were also arrested and later released. Information about a suspected security threat to RAF Fairford and the events remains opaque. In a statement late Monday, the Iranian ministry described the UK’s claims of an Iranian role as “an ugly plot” that would also serve to “evade accountability for Britain’s participation” in the ongoing war against Iran on February 28.
It said the UK had failed to provide sufficient evidence to back its claims and rejected the accusations of Iranian involvement as a “clumsy false flag operation”. British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said investigators assessed the coordinator to be a known individual based in Iran, although she did not name that person or disclose the supporting communications, financial records or other intelligence. RAF Fairford is a prominent base for United States aircraft that have participated in the war on Iran, which began on February 28 following US and Israeli strikes that killed several Iranian leaders and officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
After news of the incident, the US withdrew approximately a dozen B-1 bombers from the Fairford base. US media cited unnamed sources as alleging there was intelligence suggesting the bombers could run the risk of being hit by small drone attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly claimed at the start of October that his administration warned the UK about a plot.
Netanyahu was criticising UK measures in response to the illegal expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank amid a diplomatic dispute. Earlier this month, Tehran grouped the Fairford incident with allegations surrounding the Flydubai cockpit attack – which authorities in the United Arab Emirates claimed was a “suicide” mission to crash the plane at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. He also argued that such incidents were being manufactured to assign blame and justify a war facing public opposition in the US and elsewhere.
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