U.S. aircraft evacuated from second U.K. base due to Iran threat, WSJ reports

The U.S. military evacuated aircraft from a second airbase in Britain on Monday after a threat from Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter, weeks after the U.S. withdrew its bombers from RAF Fairford airbase over a suspected Iran-linked security incident.

Two U.S. refueling tankers that were using the RAF Mildenhall military base diverted to Germany earlier on Monday, while several other tankers at the base were moved to Germany and other locations later in the day, the WSJ report said.

According to the Journal, the precise nature of the threat to RAF Mildenhall remains under discussion among U.S. officials.

“We do not routinely comment on the activity of other nations. Aircraft and other assets move regularly according to operational requirements,” a British ministry of defense spokesperson said.

The Pentagon and the U.S. European Command did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment sent outside regular business hours.

Five men were arrested outside RAF Fairford airbase in southwest England in September over a security incident with two others arrested later on suspicion of assisting Iranian intelligence.

The circumstances of the incident, which remain largely unexplained, attracted huge international attention, coming at a time of heightened concern about the security implications for Western states of the war between the United States and Iran, and prompted the U.S. to remove its B-1 bombers from the Fairford airbase on security grounds.

RAF Fairford had been used by U.S. bombers to carry out strikes on Iran.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said last month that the activity at RAF Fairford was likely to have been coordinated in Iran, which Tehran’s ambassador to Britain has denied.