UK base security in spotlight after attempted attack at RAF Fairford

Counter-terrorism investigation advances following five arrests.
The issue of perimeter security at UK military sites is in the spotlight after a suspected attempt to attack RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire was halted on 27 September.

Located in the rural Cotswolds, the base is maintained by the US Air Force and has since earlier this year hosted a detachment of strategic bombers supporting Washington’s campaign against Iran. Currently several of the USAF’s Boeing B-1Bs are deployed to the site.

“At around 12:45am police received a call relating to three suspicious vehicles travelling towards RAF Fairford,” Gloucestershire Constabulary says. “Armed officers responded and subsequently arrested five men… on suspicion of committing offences under the Explosives Act.”

Counter-terrorism investigation work is continuing, centred on three white vans parked in the village of Whelford, close to the base’s perimeter.

Comments made by US President Donald Trump and UK defence secretary Wes Streeting suggest that authorities in both countries had some prior indication that the base was being targeted, although further details have not been disclosed.

“We had them under investigation,” Trump said following the arrests, adding: “They were looking to do big damage.”

Streeting, meanwhile, on 29 September said that only a “partial picture” had been made public.

Unlike an incident at Leipzig-Halle airport in Germany in early August, the attempted attack on the USAF-run base does not appear to have involved the potential use of drones. In that instance, German authorities blamed Russia for the attempted attack on the airport’s air cargo operations zone using two explosively armed drones.

The challenge of ensuring air base security has previously been highlighted by Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web drone attack on multiple Russian sites, and by Iran’s successful targeting of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan air base and other sites during the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

In the UK, security shortcomings were highlighted in 2024, when Palestine Action activists gained access to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire before causing damage to two Airbus Defence & Space A330 Voyager tanker/transports.

The presence of US strike aircraft at RAF Fairford had led to the organisers of the Royal International Air Tattoo cancelling the annual event in mid-July. That decision was due to “uncertainty over access” to the site amid the ongoing conflict.

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