Washington withdraws bombers from British Fairford base

Washington – Agencies: The United States confirmed that it has withdrawn all its bombers from RAF Fairford, a base of the Royal Air Force, following a mysterious security incident last month that led to an investigation into counterterrorism. Police were called to the base in southwest England on September 27 after being alerted to “suspicious” activity involving a group of men and several small trucks. A Pentagon official said in a statement, “We can now confirm that all U.S. bombers deployed at RAF Fairford have returned to their bases in the United States.” The statement added that “operational security considerations prevented us from confirming the movements of our ships and forces in real time.” An unnamed U.S. official told CNN that the bombers were relocated after a “new, unspecified threat” emerged, describing the latest incident as a “real-world incident.” The network quoted the official as saying it is unusual to return bombers to their home bases rather than relocating them to another base in the region. The New York Times quoted U.S. officials as saying the bombers were moved after leaders received new threats about an Iran-backed plot targeting the base. According to the newspaper, a U.S. official said the new information falls within the same threat warnings that emerged three weeks earlier, but the situation had become urgent in the past 24 hours.