All 12 American B-1 bombers at RAF Fairford flew home to the United States on Sunday, eight days after British police stopped three vans near the base in the middle of the night. Every one of the six men arrested in the case is now out on bail, and none has been charged. British counter-terrorism police's own statements show why the case went soft so fast, and it starts with how the first five men were held.

The Pentagon Brought Every Bomber Home in a Single Day

On Sunday, Oct. 4, aircraft spotters in Gloucestershire watched the B-1B Lancers leave Fairford one after another. Air and Space Forces Magazine reported that all 12 departed over the course of the day. The Pentagon and U.S. European Command then confirmed it: "All U.S. bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford have redeployed to their home stations in the United States."

A department official told Fox News Digital that "operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real time." The same statement made a point Tehran should hear. The bomber force, it said, remains ready to strike "anywhere, anytime," including on missions that "launch and recover from the continental United States."

Fairford has been the main American bomber base in Europe for years, and it carried real weight in this war. The magazine reported that about two dozen bombers sat there at the peak of Operation Epic Fury in March, and an open-source tracking group counted 29 different bombers rotating through during the conflict. One of the 12 that left Sunday had arrived only last week to replace another jet.

What Police Actually Found in the Vans

The scare began at about 12:45 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 27. A resident of Whelford, the village beside the base, told the Press Association she saw three white vans "blocking the road" and a "large group of hooded" men in balaclavas. Armed officers arrested five men. The Army's bomb disposal team examined the vehicles inside a 400-meter cordon, and about 85 households were evacuated.

Within a day the story was a "bomb plot" in headlines on both sides of the Atlantic. Then Britain's national head of counter-terrorism policing, Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, gave the result of the forensic search.

Petrol near a fence line full of American bombers is not nothing. Fuel is an arson tool, and a jet on a ramp is an expensive target. Still, the official record so far describes gasoline, not explosives, and readers deserve to know that before they read the next "bomb plot" headline.

Held Under PACE Instead of the Terrorism Act

Here is the detail almost nobody reported. Police said the five men were arrested on suspicion of Explosives Act offenses and of preparing terrorist acts under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006. But CTP's Sept. 28 midday update says the men "are being held under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE)," with "a custody extension" secured "until later today."

That choice set the clock. A suspect arrested under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 can be held for up to 14 days before charge, with court approval. Ordinary PACE custody tops out at 96 hours, and only with warrants from magistrates. Police did not even run that shorter clock out. By the afternoon of Sept. 28, about a day and a half after the arrests, Taylor announced all five were "being released on police bail."

CTP's own list describes the five as UK nationals from London, ages 23 to 25, living in Camden, Westminster and Willesden. Taylor called the bail an "investigative decision," said the men face "stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others," and insisted they "absolutely remain under investigation." He also admitted the move "will have come as a surprise to many."

The Sixth Suspect Was Bailed in Two Days

On Thursday, Oct. 1, police arrested a dual UK-Iranian national in Westminster on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts, again under Section 5. That arrest is what pushed the Iran angle to the front of the story. It lasted about as long as the first round. CTP's Oct. 3 release says he "has been released on bail" and that searches of two properties "have now concluded."

The same release gives his age as 25. Axios, citing CTP's Oct. 1 statement, reported him as 27, and other outlets repeated that figure. We could not open the Oct. 1 statement to check which number police first gave, so treat the age as unsettled. What is settled is the count: six arrests, six men on bail, zero charges.

Burnham Blamed Iran While His Police Let Everyone Walk

Prime Minister Andy Burnham told the BBC on Sept. 30 there were "strong indications that Iran played a part," according to Axios. "We will say more in due course," he said, and declined to elaborate. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had already told Fox News the incident "clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor."

So Britain's head of government says Iran had a hand in it, while his country's police have released every suspect they picked up. Both things can be true at once if investigators think the men were hired help. Taylor's Sept. 28 statement leaned that way. He said police were weighing whether this "may be activity committed by proxies, or individuals either knowingly or unknowingly, working on behalf of a foreign state."

He went further, in a passage most coverage skipped. Threats like this, Taylor said, often show up "as criminal activity, often at a small scale and committed by individuals whose primary aim is not terrorism but a quick financial gain." That is the pattern Western security services have described for years: a hostile state that hires local criminals for cash, so that nobody it pays has any obvious link back to Tehran.

Trump Saw Bail and Said No

President Trump praised the British response on the first day. "We had them under investigation. They were looking to do big damage to our fort," he told reporters, according to Axios. British press accounts later said the police operation was not intelligence-led, Axios noted. Taylor's own statement says it was triggered by "a range of information received, including a call from a member of the public," which leaves that question open.

Once the bail decisions came down, Trump was blunt. "I wouldn't have done that," he told reporters, Euronews reported. The bombers left days later. The Pentagon has not said the two are connected, and we are not claiming they are. But an American commander looking at that ramp had six suspects free in London, no charges, and an Iranian military that said in July any base used against it is a "legitimate target."

Iran Named Fairford Months Ago

None of this came out of nowhere. Britain gave Washington permission in March to use Fairford for what London called "specific defensive operations into Iran," per Euronews, and it is the only base on the British mainland used that way. In July, Iran's Revolutionary Guard singled out the B-1s flying from Fairford and warned that "any base used for aggression against Iranian territory is a legitimate target for us," as Axios reported.

Iran's embassy in London says Tehran "categorically rejects and strongly condemns" any link, per Axios. On Sunday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was busy on X dismissing reports that Rubio had ordered his U.N. delegation out of New York. The 501st Combat Support Wing, which runs U.S. support at the base, told Axios that no U.S. Air Force personnel were involved in the incident.

What Happens Next

The investigation is still open, and the bail conditions mean police can rearrest any of the six if evidence firms up. Burnham promised to "say more in due course." If his government really believes Iran was behind this, the next test is simple: charges, or a public case laying out the money trail Taylor hinted at.

Until then, the scoreboard reads like this. America's allies in London got a midnight scare at the gate of a base hosting U.S. bombers, found gasoline instead of bombs, and let every suspect go home within days. The Pentagon answered by taking its bombers home too. B-1s can still hit Tehran from Texas and South Dakota. They just have to fly a lot farther to do it, and that is a cost Iran's hired hands may have imposed for the price of a few vans and some petrol.

Top photo: A B-1B Lancer of the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron lands at RAF Fairford, Oct. 12, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Ryan Hayman, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)