LONDON, Oct 6 – RAF Fairford, a Royal Air Force installation in Gloucestershire that hosts US Air Force operations, remains safe after the United States withdrew its bombers, Downing Street said Monday, Anadolu Ajansi reported.
The Pentagon confirmed Sunday that US bombers, believed to include about a dozen B-1 aircraft, had been moved from RAF Fairford back to their home stations in the continental United States.
US media reported that the bombers were withdrawn following a threat against the base.
The move came after police were alerted on Sept. 27 to three “suspicious vehicles” near RAF Fairford in western England.
A No.10 spokesperson told the BBC that he would not comment on “foreign nations’ military operations” but said the base was safe.
The spokesperson also referred to US President Donald Trump’s comments last week, when he “praised our police, defence and security services” in relation to the incident at the base.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that he would not directly link last week’s incident to the decision to withdraw the bombers from RAF Fairford.
“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.
He added that the US still had full confidence in the security of all its bases and that British authorities had been very cooperative since the incident.
Five men were initially arrested on suspicion of terror offences in connection with the incident and subsequently released on bail. A sixth man, a UK-Iranian national, was also later arrested and released on bail.
According to a report by the BBC, the decision was a military rather than political one taken at an operational level and communicated from the US military to its British counterparts.
