RAF Fairford – in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire – has been at the centre of an incident being investigated by counter-terror police.
Five men were initially arrested on suspicion of terror offences and subsequently released on bail. A sixth man, a UK-Iranian national, was also later arrested and released on bail.
Following the release of the first five men, Trump criticised the decision and US officials suggested Iran could have been involved in the incident.
Whitehall sources have not disputed that the decision from Washington to remove the bombers was in response to the incident at the airbase in Gloucestershire.
Speaking earlier on Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he would not directly tie last week’s incident to the decision to pull bombers from RAF Fairford.
He added: “It’s not unusual to see movement of assets to different parts of the world based on exercises, redeployments, people changing out and new people coming in, new planes coming in and old planes going out.”
Rubio said the US still has full confidence in the security of all its bases and that British authorities have been very cooperative since the incident.
US Vice President JD Vance later said the bombers were moved out of an “abundance of caution”, adding Washington feels Iran is doing what it has “done for 49 years… which is engage in acts of terrorism against the US and against a lot of other people”.
Days after the incident at RAF Fairford, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there were “strong indications” that Iran had played a part in the incident but did not provide further details, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Fox News that it “clearly involve[d] the hands of a foreign actor” without going into further details.
Tehran has strongly denied any involvement.
In July, Iran said “any base used for aggression against Iranian territory constitutes a legitimate target for our forces”.
RAF Fairford, near the Cotswolds village of Whelford, has been used as a forward operating location by the USAF for decades.
In recent months, the US has flown B-1 and B-52 bombers from the base for the Middle East, after the UK approved a US request to use it for defensive strikes on Iran.
