Every year, in July, the meadows of the vast cow farm in Townsend, about 500 meters from the English village of Whelford, are filled with thousands of aviation enthusiasts who set up their tents there to watch the world's most famous air show, the Royal International Air Tattoo, held at the nearby Fairford base.
Since last March, these same meadows have also been visited by curious onlookers, enthusiasts, and media eager to witness the landing and takeoff of the 15 B-1 and six B-52 American bombers (the latter capable of dropping atomic bombs) destined for Fairford to bomb Iran. The de-escalation of the conflict initiated in June has led to the withdrawal of many of these aircraft. However, at least 12 American B-1 bombers are still at the base, with some reports suggesting they carried out their last mission against Iran on July 21. Two days later, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard declared that if Fairford was used in an invasion, it "will be considered a legitimate target."
Today, Sunday, Townsend farm is empty. Its owners and workers were evacuated last night by British authorities. Access points are closed, blocked by armed police. The same goes for the rest of Whelford, a typical British village of just 70 houses, located a three-quarters of an hour drive from the city of Gloucester. Its 250 inhabitants were evacuated at night to the Cirencester sports center, 15 kilometers away. They will not be able to return to their homes, at the earliest, until tomorrow morning.
The evacuations and closures are due to a possible terrorist attack attempt against the base, which could have been organized by Iran, according to police sources cited by the British press.
The US President, Donald Trump, has stated that the suspects had been on the US radar "for a long time" and has assured that "they wanted to cause great damage to our base." "The collaboration with the British worked wonderfully," he declared to the press upon his arrival in Chicago for a golf tournament.
It all began at a quarter to one in the morning, the police received, according to the official version, "a phone call" warning them that "three suspicious vehicles were heading towards the base" on the road from Whelford to the village of Fairford.
The result was five people arrested, from whom no further information has been disclosed. The arrests were made under the Explosives Act, which penalizes the possession of explosives, components, or substances that can be used to manufacture them, giving an idea, at least in theory, of what was allegedly in the cars. However, once arrested, the five suspects have been investigated under an offense specified in Article 5 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which targets everything from planning to intending to commit terrorist acts. This is considered "a significant incident," according to the Gloucestershire police, where the base is located, although the investigation has been taken over by the Counter-Terrorism Police.
The road from Whelford to Fairford is closed, and an Army robot has been examining the vehicles for explosives for hours. The Counter-Terrorism Police have taken over the investigation, although officially the incident has not been classified as an act of that nature. According to reports from the British media, security within the airbase has been visibly taken over by American soldiers. Fairford base is at Delta security level, the highest, while other bases with US units are at Charlie, the second-highest level.
The incident is an unexpected political blow for the British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, partly because it occurred precisely on the first day of the Annual Conference (equivalent to a Congress) of the Labour Party, of which he is a part. This means that Burnham will have to speak out, despite his well-demonstrated aversion to getting involved in international politics, exactly the opposite of Starmer.
Burnham, furthermore, leans more to the left than Starmer, and although his meeting with Donald Trump this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, was quite cordial, both have enormous fundamental differences, especially regarding Iran, Israel, and Palestine. The US President has made statements that could be considered openly unfriendly - if not constituting interference in internal affairs - of the UK, especially when two weeks ago he expressed support for the reunification of Ireland, which would mean Northern Ireland ceasing to be British. To slightly improve matters, Trump has refused to clarify his stance on Scottish independence.
The prime minister has also strained London's relations with Israel by banning the purchase of goods and services produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where his foreign minister, Ed Miliband—who is Jewish—has accused Tel Aviv of carrying out "ethnic cleansing." The Israeli government responded by closing the British consulate in Jerusalem, and its ultra-nationalist Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, of the Jewish Power party, has declared that "it is time for the State of Israel to publicly recognize that the Falkland Islands are occupied Argentine territory."
Fairford is the only base in Europe equipped to accommodate U.S. B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers. On March 1, just one day after Israel and the United States launched the war against Iran, the Labour government of then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer yielded to pressure from Donald Trump and authorized their use in the conflict, but only to carry out "defensive" missions. That condition was intended to give the appearance that the aircraft would not be used as part of the offensive but solely to protect non-belligerent countries that were being attacked by Iran. That included the United Kingdom, whose Akrotiri base in Cyprus had been struck by an Iranian drone on March 7.
In practice, and given that Iran's defense forces are completely decentralized, it is impossible to know which military facilities are used to attack third countries, meaning that the distinction made by Starmer was purely symbolic. Fairford thus became the only base in Europe that was used to carry out offensive operations during the war. The joint British-American base at Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, also has the capacity to host bombers, but its role in the attack on Iran remains secret.
Since Iran, on the one hand, and the United States and Israel, on the other, began de-escalating the conflict in June, Fairford's role has diminished, as the intensity of the clashes between those countries has decreased—with the exception of the escalation in fighting triggered by Tehran's threat in July. An Iranian action against Fairford would contradict Iran's policy, as on Saturday Iran offered the United States the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz—an offer that U.S. President Donald Trump immediately rejected.
The country with which London has experienced the most tension in recent weeks is Russia. Moscow has recalled its ambassador to the United Kingdom and has indicated that it will not appoint a replacement for the time being. In recent weeks, British authorities have sounded the alarm about a possible hybrid attack by Moscow. Supporters of the Russian government have already carried out several acts of sabotage in the country, including the partial destruction of then-Prime Minister Starmer's private residence in May 2025. In June, two people were sentenced to prison for those acts: a Ukrainian and a Romanian who, according to the verdict, were acting on orders from a Russian sabotage network.