British counter-terrorism police arrested five men on suspicion of offences under the Explosives Act after a security operation near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, an airbase that the United States has used to launch and support strikes against Iran during the ongoing conflict in the Gulf. Gloucestershire Police said a specialist Army explosive ordnance disposal team was called in to examine a number of vehicles found near the base as part of the investigation, and that residents of several properties in the nearby village of Whelford were evacuated as a precaution and taken to a local leisure centre while the operation was carried out. The base has played a significant role in the war between Iran and a US-Israeli coalition, having previously been used to load bunker-busting bombs onto American aircraft and to station strategic bombers involved in strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites earlier in the conflict. US President Donald Trump said separately that the men taken into custody were believed to have been planning to cause “big damage,” though he did not elaborate on what specific target or plot investigators believe they were pursuing.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed the nationalities or identities of the five men, and British officials have not said whether the case is being treated as linked to Iran, to a domestic extremist network, or to another motive, pending further investigation. The arrests come amid persistently high security around US and UK military assets tied to the Iran conflict, which has continued for more than 200 days since fighting first broke out earlier this year and briefly paused for a ceasefire that later collapsed. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has previously warned that it would strike US ships in the Indian Ocean if hostilities resumed, and Gulf shipping routes including the Strait of Hormuz have remained a recurring flashpoint amid the wider standoff. The investigation into the Fairford incident is continuing, and police have asked the public to avoid the area while forensic examination of the vehicles continues.
No explosives had been confirmed to have been found at the scene as of the latest update from Gloucestershire Police. The incident underscores how the Iran war’s security fallout has extended well beyond the Middle East to bases in Britain that have directly supported the US military campaign.