US withdraws all bomber planes from UK airbase

The Pentagon confirmed reports Sunday that the United States has withdrawn all B-1 bomber planes from Royal Air Force Fairford, the UK airbase where a suspicious incident triggered nearby evacuations.

A statement from a Pentagon official said “we can acknowledge now that all US bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford have redeployed to their home stations in the United States.”

The statement noted that “operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real-time.”

Police were called to the base in southwest England last Sunday after a local farmer reported a group of men with several vans engaged in “suspicious” activity.

The scare forced evacuations at 85 homes near the airbase, which was used to launch strikes on Iran.

Speculation about the motives behind the incident ranged from terror threat to fuel thievery, as energy prices in the UK hit record highs this week.

Investigators said they did not find any explosives in the vans, but instead “a quantity of petrol was recovered,” National Counter Terrorism Policing head Lawrence Taylor said.

The five London-based Britons arrested in the incident, all men in their mid-20s, were released on bail, drawing rebuke from Washington.

“I wouldn’t have done that,” US President Donald Trump told reporters, as his Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged a “foreign actor” was involved.

Iran’s embassy in London has said it “categorically rejects and strongly condemns” speculation that Tehran was involved.

Security at the base had reportedly been heightened recently.

Britain gave Washington permission in March to use Fairford for “specific defensive operations into Iran,” and US bombers and other planes have since been seen taking off and landing from the base.

Fairford is the only airbase on Britain’s mainland used for this purpose.

The incident came after a farmer living in the village of Whelford, near the airbase, called the police after seeing three vans blocking a road and a group of masked men fleeing the scene.

Aerial footage of the vans showed they appeared to contain barrels, and at least one was marked with a fake logo and phone number, giving the false impression that it was owned by a legitimate diesel delivery firm.