WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that a “foreign actor” was involved in the incident at RAF Fairford in England, but he offered no public evidence for the assertion, deepening a diplomatic dispute over last weekend’s arrests near the U.S. Air Force base.
Rubio made the claim while appearing in Washington alongside British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. The Foreign Office declined to comment further, according to Reuters.
Five British nationals, all aged 23 to 25 and from London, were arrested near RAF Fairford on September 27 and released on bail on September 28. Britain’s Counter Terrorism Policing said the investigation remains active and that officers are considering possible foreign-state involvement.
A Reuters source familiar with the case said the three white vans at the center of the investigation did not contain viable explosives.
President Donald Trump, speaking aboard Air Force One, suggested a possible Iranian link to the incident. Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations denied any Iranian involvement.
The remarks turn a strange episode at one of the U.S. Air Force’s key bases in Britain into a live diplomatic flashpoint. Rubio’s assertion, made without supporting evidence, comes as Washington has repeatedly raised the possibility of Iranian involvement in recent weeks — claims Tehran has rejected.
Zark News reported September 28 on the arrests themselves. Tuesday’s development is a substantive new turn: the United States’ top diplomat publicly raising foreign-state involvement while the underlying investigation is still open and its findings unreleased.
Counterterrorism officials have not said what charges, if any, the five men could face. Authorities have also not released details of what the vans were carrying or how the suspects were connected to the base. The investigation, police said, is ongoing.