Trump confirms 'threat' drove US bomber withdrawal from RAF Fairford

President Donald Trump has confirmed that a threat against RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire prompted the withdrawal of American bombers from the Gloucestershire base, saying Washington believes it knows who was responsible. Speaking to reporters outside the White House as he departed for Nebraska on Monday, the US president said the aircraft "didn't fly out by accident" and that the decision was taken to avoid presenting an inviting target.

The US Defence Department confirmed on Sunday that the bombers had been relocated from the Cotswolds airbase back to their home stations in America. Military analysts and officials described the aircraft involved as being roughly a dozen B-1 bombers, part of a forward deployment that had been in place for months.

Trump was asked directly whether a specific threat had resulted in the US pulling its aircraft from the airbase. He replied that he believed that could be said, adding that "rather than tempting the enemy" the US preferred to capture and defeat it. Asked why the aircraft had been moved at all, he said there was no reason to leave them exposed, adding that the bombers had been shifted "a little bit" and "not very far". He said Washington "actually knows the people that made the threat", though he declined to identify them or confirm any country was behind it.

The US president's account came just hours after a Downing Street spokesperson insisted that RAF Fairford remained safe. No 10 pointed to remarks Trump had made the previous week, when he had commended the UK's police, defence and security services in relation to the base. The sharp difference in tone between Washington and London illustrates the sensitivity surrounding an investigation that continues to draw US attention.

Trump's comments appear to corroborate reporting by US media that a fresh threat was behind the relocation of the bombers following a major incident on 27 September, when police were alerted to three "suspicious vehicles" near the airbase. RAF Fairford, which sits close to the village of Whelford, has been at the centre of a counter-terrorism police investigation ever since.

In the aftermath, five men were arrested on suspicion of terror offences and subsequently released on bail. A sixth man, a UK-Iranian national, was arrested at a later stage and also released on bail. Following the release of the first five men, Trump criticised that decision, and US officials suggested Iran might have been involved in what happened at the base.

Whitehall sources have not disputed the claim that Washington's decision to remove the bombers was a response to the incident at the Gloucestershire site. However, the precise nature of the perceived threat remains unclear. Sources in Washington told the BBC it may have centred on possible sabotage attempts, or on an attempt to attack the sensitive and expensive aircraft on the ground in the event of resumed hostilities with Iran.

One source close to the White House invoked Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb, the covert drone attack on five Russian bases last June, as an illustration of what an adversary might attempt even from a considerable distance. The source stressed that whatever the US administration believed was behind the threat, it was "taken extremely seriously".

The president's remarks, and those of Vice-President JD Vance before his, stand in marked contrast to the more measured language of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio declined to directly link last week's incident to the removal of the aircraft, pointing instead to the frequency with which military units and equipment rotate worldwide, whether for exercises, redeployments or personnel changes.

Rubio said the US retained full confidence in the security of all of its bases and praised British authorities for their co-operation since the incident. Vance, by contrast, said the bombers had been moved out of an "abundance of caution", arguing that Iran was continuing a pattern of activity stretching back 49 years, describing it as engaging in acts of terrorism against the US and against other countries.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there were "strong indications" that Iran had played a part in the incident, though he gave no further details. Rubio said the case had "clearly involved" a foreign actor but again stopped short of naming one. Tehran has strongly denied any involvement, and in July declared that any base used for aggression against Iranian territory would constitute a legitimate target for its forces.

The strategic stakes of the base help explain the alarm. RAF Fairford has served as a forward operating location for the US Air Force for decades, and in recent months American B-1 and B-52 bombers have flown from it on missions into the Middle East. That activity followed the UK approving a US request to use the base for defensive strikes on Iran.

For the UK, the episode raises questions about the security arrangements underpinning a hosting arrangement central to Anglo-US military cooperation. For Washington, the episode exposes a tension between reassurance for an ally and operational caution, with official accounts diverging over whether the withdrawal was a routine rotation or a direct response to a credible threat. Attention now turns to the counter-terrorism inquiry and whether investigators can establish who was behind the suspicious vehicles seen near the airbase.