The British counterterrorism police rearrested two men on Tuesday in connection with an alleged terror plot at a British air base last month and said for the first time that they believe the men were working on behalf of Iran.
The two men from London, a 24-year-old British national and a 25-year-old dual British and Iranian national, had been released on bail after their initial arrests on suspicion of planning to carry out a terrorist attack at R.A.F. Fairford, a base in England used by American bombers.
In a statement on Tuesday, the police said the men had been taken back into custody on suspicion of “assisting a foreign intelligence service under Section 3 of the National Security Act.” The statement said that “the country to which the investigation relates is Iran.”
The British police had not publicly said that they believed Iran was involved in the incident at the base, though Prime Minister Andy Burnham said as much late last month.
“There are strong indications that Iran played a part in what happened over the weekend at R.A.F. Fairford,” Mr. Burnham told the BBC in an interview on Sept. 30.
Details of the threat against the air base remain hazy nearly a month after police responded to a telephone call alerting them to three white vans headed toward Fairford. Police later said the call had come from one of the men inside the vans but have not explained why the man decided to call the authorities.
The arrests of five men on the morning of Sept. 27 triggered more than two days of anxiety as the police and military used a bomb disposal robot to examine the vans. More than 85 nearby homes were evacuated.
Within two days, all five men had been released on bail after the bomb units failed to discover any explosives in the vans. Two more men were arrested soon after, and they, too, were released on bail. None of the men have been charged with a crime.
Early this month, the United States abruptly flew all of its bombers out of Fairford and returned them to bases in the United States. The withdrawal happened so quickly that some of the planes and their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft were still being scrambled to support them.
Two U.S. officials said at the time that commanders had received new threats of an Iran-backed plot against the installation.
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