British police announced on Tuesday that they had re-arrested two men suspected of helping Iranian intelligence services during the affair alleged plot at US airbase in England last month.
Counter-terrorism police said the men, a 24-year-old British national and a 25-year-old, dual British and Iranian national, were arrested under the national security law.
The men had previously been arrested but were released on bail pending further investigation.
Police are investigating a suspected terrorist plot on September 27 against the US base at RAF Fairford in western England, which was used to bomb Iran during this year’s war.
Many residents were evacuated from their homes near the base as armed police and army bomb disposal experts swarmed the rural area. Police later said they found a quantity of an accelerant – gasoline – in three vans at the site, but no explosives.
The British authorities have linked Tehran to the incidentwhich led the United States to withdraw its bombers from RAF Fairford.
Five other men, also arrested earlier, remain on bail. No one has yet been charged.
Laurence Taylor, head of the UK’s National Counter-Terrorism Police, said detectives were examining “many lines of inquiry involved in this extremely complex investigation”.
“This is an ongoing investigation, and our collection of evidence continues, but at this time our position remains the same; we consider it very likely that there is Iranian state involvement,” he said in a statement.
“Our investigators continue to examine what this level of involvement was and the ambition behind it,” he added.
Iranian officials have repeatedly said since the start of the war that any bases used to attack the country would be considered legitimate targets. But the Iranian Embassy in London said in an earlier statement that the regime “categorically rejects and strongly condemns recent unfounded and malicious speculation published by some British individuals and media outlets attempting to link Iran” to the incident.
Earlier this month, the US Air Force deleted all its bombers at the air base following the security incident.
Gn world
