It remains unclear what happened with the arrest of five men outside a U.S. Air Force base in the United Kingdom late Saturday.
We do know that there has been a terrorist plot targeting RAF Fairford since at least early September. Still, some observers have theorized that the men may have simply been fuel thieves who only appeared to be engaged in more nefarious activity. Alternatively, as I noted on Monday, there are other indications that the men were detained prematurely due to failed deconfliction between a covert surveillance operation and local police.
Regardless, this situation is once again publicizing two realities about U.S. and U.K. counterterrorism cooperation. First, the United States and U.K. share effectively all their intelligence material when a serious counterterrorism issue is involved. Second, U.S. officials are far more willing to share information publicly than their British counterparts. This divergence sometimes creates serious tensions.
The first point about cooperation is a function of the post-9/11 fusion of counterterrorism operations. FBI agents and analysts at the U.S. Embassy in London liaise very closely with MI5, the domestic intelligence service. MI6 officers in Washington liaise very closely with the CIA, and vice versa. The National Security Agency and Britain’s equivalent service, GCHQ, are effectively fused in many areas, sharing office space and data storage and conducting a wide range of major operations. The Washington Examiner is aware of one operation during the first Trump administration that had a very significant strategic effect, for example.
The second, “what-to-tell-the-public” point comes down to differences in law and culture.
Note that British officials have generally been extremely guarded in their comments about these arrests. They have stated only that they are exploring all possibilities and that the arrested men, now bailed, are under tight supervision. U.K. Defense Secretary Wes Streeting has gone the furthest of U.K. officials, stating that a farmer who had called police about the men had only a “partial picture” of the situation.
In contrast, President Donald Trump has suggested that the U.S. and the U.K. were aware of the men’s nefarious activities for a long time and that they wanted to attack RAF Fairford. Trump even expressed disagreement with the U.K.’s decision to bail the men, though there are feasibly legitimate reasons for this decision. Most interesting, however, were Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments on Fox News on Monday evening. Stating that he could not share all the details, Rubio added that this was a “very serious situation” and “clearly involved the hands of a foreign actor.” Thanking the U.K. for its cooperation, Rubio then made an implicit reference to Iranian involvement.
This distinction in U.S.-U.K. rhetoric reflects the American custom of more public-facing disclosure during developing crises. U.S. officials are certainly more media-friendly in discussing breaking-news intelligence matters than their British counterparts. Doing so is often rewarded with positive media attention. In contrast, the U.K.’s greater rhetorical caution is also underlined by questions of law.
Most notably, the U.K. legal system is deeply reticent to allow wiretap or other covert intelligence material to be used as evidence in court. In contrast, such evidence is a centerpiece of U.S. terrorism prosecutions. But this legal divergence also means that U.K. officials, including politicians, are far more reticent to discuss intelligence-related activities for fear that doing so will prejudice any future prosecution.
In turn, while U.S.-U.K. intelligence cooperation is unmatched, it isn’t without its controversies.
British authorities were furious following U.S. media leaks involving photographic evidence from the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. That evidence was shared by U.K. authorities with their U.S. counterparts in confidence before quickly turning up in front-page news reports.
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Tensions also flared during an August 2006 British operation to arrest terrorists who were plotting to detonate liquid explosives on passenger airliners heading from London to the U.S. and Canada. U.K. authorities wanted more time to maintain surveillance of the suspects, but the U.S. demanded an immediate British intervention. The U.S. forced matters when the CIA precipitated the plot ringleader’s arrest in Pakistan. British authorities were furious, and subsequent criminal prosecutions of the suspects faced significant complications.
As Rubio pointed out, then, we will get a lot more information in the coming days. But while U.S.-U.K. cooperation on this investigation appears to have been reliably interwoven, it would be a mistake to assume the two governments are in lockstep on what comes next. If the U.S. believes that any suspects have not been held sufficiently accountable, for example, expect extradition requests to follow.