The alleged plot to attack a British air base used by the US in Fairford, England, is among the leading topics today in British and American publications.
Great Britain
US President Donald Trump said that the five men arrested on suspicion of plotting to bomb the Royal Air Force's Fairford air base should not have been released on bail, the British newspaper “Telegraph“ writes.
The British citizens, aged between 23 and 25, were arrested on Sunday on suspicion of conspiracy to commit terrorism and explosives offences after they were found near the British air base three vans were found, the newspaper said. Yesterday, however, police announced that after "extensive questioning and investigation" all five men had been released on bail.
The newspaper quoted Trump as telling reporters that he was surprised that the five men had been released. "We know everything about them. We wouldn't release them... I wouldn't release them," the US president said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said unequivocally that a foreign entity was involved in the alleged plot to attack Britain, the Guardian newspaper reported.
Rubio, however, did not provide evidence for his claims, the newspaper noted. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in July that the British base was a legitimate target, but the Iranian embassy in London denied any Iranian involvement in the events near Fairford.
The release of the five suspects on bail shows that investigators consider it unlikely that they were on their way to carry out a mass-casualty attack by detonating a bomb near the base, the Guardian reported, citing its own sources.
USA
The alleged plot highlights Britain's status as one of Tehran's targets for retaliatory strikes, after the UK reluctantly allowed US bombers to strike Iran from British bases earlier this year, the Washington Post reported.
The UK initially refused to allow US forces to use British bases for airstrikes strikes on Iran, the newspaper noted. Subsequently, however, then-British Prime Minister Keir Starmer agreed to allow the United States to use British bases for “defensive” air strikes, aimed at limiting Iran's ability to retaliate against American allies in the Persian Gulf.
The war only reinforced British concerns about Iranian-backed plots on its soil, the newspaper commented. British police have made several arrests this year in connection with alleged plots, while also trying to deal with a growing violence targeting Jews or Jewish sites.
What exactly happened near the perimeter of Fairford Air Base in southern England remains unclear, but the case has already raised serious questions about the security of the facility and how the suspects managed to get so close to it, writes the "New York Times“.
If it turns out that Iran is connected to the attempted attack on the British air base, it is likely to reinforce the public's deep skepticism about the war, the publication notes. According to a number of sociological surveys, a large majority of the British public does not support Trump's decision to attack Iran and is concerned about the consequences of the conflict for the British economy.