The five men arrested on Sunday outside of RAF Fairford, a U.K. air base used by the United States in the Iran war, on suspicion of planning an attack on the base, will be released on bail, U.K. police said.
Head of counterterrorism policing Laurence Taylor announced the update during a Monday press conference on the steps of Scotland Yard. Despite their release, Taylor still spoke of the event as a foiled attack, and left open the possibility that they could’ve been proxies for a foreign government, alluding to Iran.
“We are considering this from every possible angle, including that this may be actively committed by proxies or individuals, either knowingly or unknowingly working on behalf of a foreign state to respond to incidents such as these,” he said.
“To be very clear, this does not mean the investigation is over,” Taylor said, after announcing the five were being released on bail. “They are subject to stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others.”
The five men remain under investigation.
Taylor acknowledged the “significant interest in whether the current geopolitical context has a bearing on this incident,” to which he said counterterrorism police were “working within this context every single day and at this stage we are keeping an open mind in this investigation.”
The counterterrorism official said police’s rapid mobilization was necessary, that plots like these often involve people seeking “quick financial gain” rather than terrorism.
Further adding to the confusion was U.K. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who appeared to still address the incident as a foiled terrorist attack. After saying the scene was “now safe,” she signaled that the bust was a major victory in the struggle against terrorism.
“To all those who mean us harm and plot violence on our soil, let this be a reminder you will never defeat us,” she said.
The residents from 85 homes near the three vans that were evacuated out of caution were cleared to return.
RAF Fairford seized global headlines on Sunday after British police declared a “major incident” near the air base, one housing U.S. heavy bombers that had been used against Iran.
Police were sent to the area after being alerted by a local farmer in her 50s, who noticed the odd placement of the vans. Her suspicions grew worse when she tried calling the number on one of the vans and it didn’t work. The people with the vehicles then began acting strangely.
“We suddenly saw a large group of men,” the farmer said. “They were panicking. … I suppose they were panicking because anyone saw them, but our vehicle is quite similar to the patrol vehicles that they use, and we had our lights on main beam.
“I think we sort of dazzled them, and they started to run, and some of them ran straight ahead across the road into the field, and some turned and started going down towards Kempsford, which is our next village,” she said, adding that she was certain there were more people there than the five arrested.
The farmer then tried calling the Ministry of Defense police to warn them, but the phone “just rang and rang and rang and no one answered,” she said, according to the Guardian. The police nonemergency line put her on hold when she reached it, so she called the emergency line, which triggered an almost immediate response.
“Literally within five minutes of that, everything sort of kicked off and armed police arrived — the guys were arrested,” she said. “The helicopter was up searching, probably for a couple of hours, and there was a lot of shouting.”
Despite her critical help and testimony, the farmer said the government hadn’t followed up with her.
FIVE ARRESTED ON SUSPICION OF PREPARING TERRORIST ACT AT UK AIR BASE USED BY US IN IRAN WAR
“The strange thing is, there was no kind of follow-up,” the farmer said. “The police didn’t ring me — they had all my details, they didn’t phone me back, and nobody told anyone in the village what was going on apart from me.”
She also noted that police left the suspicious vehicles in place without evacuating anyone for a significant period of time.