The United States rushed over the weekend to withdraw all 12 B-1 Air Force bombers from an air base in southern England after commanders received new threats about an Iran-backed plot against the installation, two U.S. officials said on Sunday.
The withdrawal was highly unusual: Such moves are rarely made so quickly from an allied air base in a peacetime country thousands of miles from a combat zone. The need to move the bombers out of the base, R.A.F. Fairford, was deemed so urgent that some of the planes and their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft were still being scrambled to support their flights to the United States. At least three of the planes had landed at their home base in South Dakota by Sunday.
The Pentagon’s European Command confirmed on Sunday that the bombers had left England but declined to comment on any new warnings. The British Ministry of Defense declined to comment on the movements of U.S. military assets. American officials declined to specify the nature of the new information that prompted the rapid withdrawal.
The sudden pullout came a week after British police arrested five men near the base, who were released on bail. A dual British-Iranian national was arrested on Thursday. U.S. and British officials believe the operation is connected to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. In July, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned that any base used to launch attacks on Iranian territory is a legitimate target.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing