LONDON — British police said Tuesday that they had rearrested two men suspected of being involved in a possible terrorism plot orchestrated by Iran targeting a British air base used by U.S. bombers.
The suspects were arrested “on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service,” according to British counterterrorism officials, indicating that investigators have uncovered evidence linking the plot to Iran’s security services.
“This is very much a live investigation, and our evidence gathering continues,” Laurence Taylor, head of U.K. Counter Terrorism Policing, said in a statement. Even so, he said, “we consider it highly likely that there is Iranian state involvement.”
The new arrests came more than three weeks after police briefly detained five men traveling after midnight in vans toward Royal Air Force Fairford, a high-security air base used by American B-1 bombers to carry out strikes on Iran in the war launched in late February. At least seven suspects were initially arrested in connection with the plot.
The United States rushed to relocate those planes to home soil as alarm spread among U.S. military and intelligence officials that Iran was planning a major attack on RAF Fairford or other installations.
Despite that hasty evacuation, few details have emerged so far to suggest the base or the B-1 bombers stationed there were in danger. British investigators found no explosives or weapons in the vans driven by the suspects, only cans of gasoline.
All suspects were subsequently released on bail, and investigators are still seeking to determine what the men were planning, according to British officials. The scenarios under investigation range from arson to the prospect that the plan was for unarmed men to drive vans toward Fairford in an attempt to sow panic.
The men rearrested Tuesday include one of the suspects, a 24-year-old British national, who was taken into custody on Sept. 27 near the air base, as well as a dual U.K.-Iranian national, 25, who was arrested days later in London. Their identities have not been revealed by authorities.
The men were initially arrested on suspicion of involvement in a possible terrorism attack, but they were taken back into custody under a different law — a sweeping national security act passed several years ago that makes it a crime to take part in any activity that might assist a foreign intelligence service.
Five other suspects who were previously arrested remain free on bail, officials said. One of those men called the “999″ British emergency police line shortly after midnight on Sept. 27 as the vans were approaching Fairford, a tip that prompted local police to mobilize.
The call from one of the suspected plotters is one of many puzzling aspects of the case that suggests one or more suspects had misgivings about the plan or learned of its objectives only after approaching RAF Fairford.
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