Major incident at RAF Fairford - NEWS ONLY !!!!!

Foo Fighter said:
When/how many incidents on the CONUS?
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Not many.

There's occasionally the idiot that tries to run the gate at a base. That probably happens once a month but it's rare that it makes the news.

Much more rarely, someone goes active shooter, but that does not work well on base since that [expletives deleted] Hassan shot up Fort Hood. Now it's very likely for the shooter to be charged by everyone within hearing distance of the event, whether everyone happens to be carrying actual weapons or is improvising. Kinda like what happens on a plane when stupid happens, but where everyone is physically fit and most are trained in some flavor of combatives, so the beatdown is a lot harder, with no consideration for the structural integrity of any surrounding structures or the concrete they stand on. "Hit the attacker with the planet until he stops moving" is the standard response recommendation. Those do make the news, but there have been less than 1 per year, only 20 since 1993.
 
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I could find nothing on the bleep bleep cee when I looked online or on the idiot box. Nobody here had a clue, despite being under one of their approach routes.
 
Re-arrested now on suspicion of preparing a Terrorist act.

Hybrid warfare?
 
targetpractice said:
Why can't you say BBC?
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Usually comes from assumption that it's 'biased', where that usually means 'doesn't share my biases'.

So far as I can tell the BBC talks utter rubbish at about the same rate as other news outlets.
Flyaway said:
Re-arrested now on suspicion of preparing a Terrorist act.
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Presumably the Explosives Act charges are easier to demonstrate on the spot.
 
Flyaway said:
Re-arrested now on suspicion of preparing a Terrorist act.

Hybrid warfare?
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If so, it seems far more likely to have been Iran-linked than Russian. There have been quite a few instances of actual Iran-linked terrorist acts in recent years, many of them attacks on Jewish targets in the West. This would be an escalation, but hardly unprecedented.
 
Yellow Palace said:
Presumably the Explosives Act charges are easier to demonstrate on the spot.
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The BBC News Channel had an interview with a former National Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, IIRC he said terrorism arrests require an element of motive - either directed at the government, a foreign government or at the population to cause terror. So Explosives Act arrests can be done on the spot and then you rearrest under the Terrorism Act later when you decide there's sufficient evidence of motive.
 
Oh, and for anyone listening to Trump claiming 'it's great cooperation, we had them under surveillance', that's not the story we're hearing in the UK. Which is that the arrests weren't the result of intelligence, but from someone phoning in a report to the police at 12:30AM (after getting no answer at Fairford) saying they'd seen three vans behaving suspiciously.
 
DWG said:
Oh, and for anyone listening to Trump claiming 'it's great cooperation, we had them under surveillance', that's not the story we're hearing in the UK. Which is that the arrests weren't the result of intelligence, but from someone phoning in a report to the police at 12:30AM (after getting no answer at Fairford) saying they'd seen three vans behaving suspiciously.
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That sounds like when the cops pull over a car for going 3 mph over the speed limit and just happen to find 50 kg of cocaine in the trunk. If they knew about the plan beforehand, when did the FPCON level at Fairford start going up?
 
Being one of those revolting colonials I had to look up where RAF Fairford is: current Google Maps image was taken while an airshow was in progress, looks to have been well attended.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/zbrxZYHBs5MeNoZ56
 

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targetpractice said:
Why can't you say BBC?
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Because after decades of mismanagement and so called 'factual reports' describing APC and crowd control vehicles as 'tanks' etc - and I include hitching a ride on a police rotary winged aircraft during the attempted arrest of a public figure breaking the law to do so they get nothing more than bleep bleep cee from me.

And THAT is me being polite. Direct enough?
 
southwestforests said:
Being one of those revolting colonials I had to look up where RAF Fairford is: current Google Maps image was taken while an airshow was in progress, looks to have been well attended.
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That would be RIAT*, it's the biggest non-trade show in the UK. Cancelled this year because Fairford was rather busy.

* Royal International Air Tattoo.
 
I'd expect something more elaborate from a state actors, at best loosely linked to paramilitary formations
 
Not James Stockdale said:
That sounds like when the cops pull over a car for going 3 mph over the speed limit and just happen to find 50 kg of cocaine in the trunk. If they knew about the plan beforehand, when did the FPCON level at Fairford start going up?
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I did see a comment on-line (but can't find it again now) that Fairfords alert was raised last week, and was higher than Lakenheath and Mildenhall, but nom proof of that sorry.

They have extended the corden (200-400M) and put in a no-fly zone, probably to give the teams on the ground a bit of privacy from the press
 
DWG said:
Oh, and for anyone listening to Trump claiming 'it's great cooperation, we had them under surveillance', that's not the story we're hearing in the UK. Which is that the arrests weren't the result of intelligence, but from someone phoning in a report to the police at 12:30AM (after getting no answer at Fairford) saying they'd seen three vans behaving suspiciously.
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Yes, based on public statements in the UK we don't actually know that Fairford was the target. Trump claims it was, but he... usually requires some interpretation.
 
bob225 said:
I did see a comment on-line (but can't find it again now) that Fairfords alert was raised last week, and was higher than Lakenheath and Mildenhall, but nom proof of that sorry.

They have extended the corden (200-400M) and put in a no-fly zone, probably to give the teams on the ground a bit of privacy from the press
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I think this is the message in question;
https://twitter.com/x/status/2103934420143005917
View: https://x.com/DefenceGeek/status/2103934420143005917
.
 
Yellow Palace said:
Yes, based on public statements in the UK we don't actually know that Fairford was the target. Trump claims it was, but he... usually requires some interpretation.
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Do you think the truck bombs were just coincidentally within a few hundred meters of the US strategic bomber base that the IRGC has already publicly identified a target?
bobthemonkey said:
I think this is the message in question;
.
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If this tweet was published at 10:47 pm UK time yesterday and refers to FPCON Delta at that time and increased security measures over the past week, I don't think you can attribute the increased security to a civilian spotting the masked men at 12:30 am this morning.
 
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Yellow Palace said:
The UK's definition of 'terrorism' is sufficiently broad that I can think of at least half a dozen reasons why an attack targeting Fairford might fall under it.
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I was just responding to the "hybrid warfare" question, that is more often used to refer to Russian actions than Iranian ones. Though they are fairly similar in practice.
 
Not James Stockdale said:
If this tweet was published at 10:47 pm UK time yesterday and refers to FPCON Delta at that time and increased security measures over the past week, I don't think you can attribute the increased security to a civilian spotting the masked men at 12:30 am this morning.
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True, but nor can you necessarily attribute the arrests to the increased security. You can have indications of an imminent attack without the specifics of when.
 
This thread just moments ago proved to be of practical use in an unexpected way -- had called my 86 year old parents, Dad a retired USN officer, and talked to Mom while Dad had gone to nap after the Kansas City Chiefs game (they won) & Mom asked if I'd heard about people being arrested for terrorism at a UK airport ...
... I said, yes I have, gimme just a second, and since I was using the landline phone at the PC desk, pulled up this thread and relayed some bits of info from the posts.
:)
 
Not James Stockdale said:
Do you think the truck bombs were just coincidentally within a few hundred meters of the US strategic bomber base that the IRGC has already publicly identified a target?
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I think it's reasonable supposition, but still supposition. Even if Fairford was the target, I can think of at least three or four possible motivations, and at least one of them has nothing to do with any foreign power.
 
EmoBirb said:
I'd expect something more elaborate from a state actors, at best loosely linked to paramilitary formations
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TomS said:
I was just responding to the "hybrid warfare" question, that is more often used to refer to Russian actions than Iranian ones.
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While it's certainly possible that this was something organised by the IRGC my first thought was if this was an attack using local proxies organised by the SVR or GRU in an example of Putin's hybrid-warfare.
 
NMaude said:
While it's certainly possible that this was something organised by the IRGC my first thought was if this was an attack using local proxies organised by the SVR or GRU in an example of Putin's hybrid-warfare.
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Why? RAF Fairford has no obvious linkage to the war in Ukraine but a clear one to the war against Iran.

And there are many known instances of Iran using local proxies in lethal plots in Europe.

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/mapping-iranian-external-operations-worldwide
 
TomS said:
Why? RAF Fairford has no obvious linkage to the war in Ukraine but a clear one to the war against Iran.
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Point taken however Russia has been helping Iran in this undeclared war.
 
This would mark the 3rd major Iranian attack against the UK since the start of the recent Iran war.
The first was the Hezbollah attack on RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus - thwarted by Israel.
The second was the missile launch toward Diego Garcia - thwarted by the US.
 
From the BBC:

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has been speaking to the BBC this morning, in the wake of the incident near RAF Fairford. Here's what he said:

  • An investigation into the events near the military base is "well under way", he said, but declined to go into detail about security operations
  • He thanked the member of the public who called the police to report the three vans blocking the road, but said she will only have "had a partial view" of the situation
  • Streeting said he understands it's frustrating for the public to not know more, but it is "a small price to pay" to protect the integrity of the police and security services
  • However, he did say that "as soon a we can keep the public informed, we will", when he was asked about Donald Trump's comments that details would be shared "very soon"
  • Asked about possible links between Iran and the five men arrested, he said he is not "drawing a connection with Iran" but added that "we know that Iran and their proxies wish to do us harm"
  • He also argued for more investment in defence, saying: "In the dangerous and turbulent world we find ourselves in, investment in defence is a price worth paying"
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Foo Fighter said:
All afternoon maybe but, this morning not.
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Don't forget that it was competing for coverage at that point with another nationally important* breaking news story, the Loyalist/Nationalist standoff in Drumcree, where the news shows already had cameras and reporters on the spot, as opposed to needing to get them out of bed on a Sunday morning and over to Fairford.

I was certainly watching events at Fairford on the BBC News Channel from about 9:30 or 10:00AM

* ETA: I'd argue Drumcree is still the one with more long term security significance.
 
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