Iran targeting military sites, suspected plot at RAF Fairford not unique: MI5

Iran is trying to hit military sites in the UK and the suspected plot to attack a US-run military air base in September is “not unique,” the head of Britain’s MI5 spy agency said Tuesday.

Ken McCallum, who leads the UK’s domestic security service, said Tehran is seeking to intensify its attacks in Britain beyond the traditional targets of Iranians opposed to the country’s Islamic authorities.

That has included arson and sabotage attacks on Jewish sites that Britain says were carried out by Iranian proxies. McCallum said another “major shift this year has been Iranian ambitions to come at harder targets, like military sites.”

The incident at RAF Fairford “is not unique. There have been other examples, not just in the UK but around the world,” McCallum said. McCallum delivered a speech outlining major threats to the UK as detectives probe a suspected terror plot against the US-run base in western England, which has been used to bomb Iran during this year’s war. Scores of residents were evacuated from their homes near the base on Sept. 27 as armed police officers and army bomb-disposal experts swarmed the rural area. Police later said they had found a quantity of an accelerant - gasoline - in three vans at the site, but no explosives.

British authorities have linked Tehran to the incident, which led the US to pull its bombers from RAF Fairford. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday that the apparent plot was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Seven men in their 20s have been arrested and released on bail under investigation. Iran has denied involvement, although it has previously said that it considers any base used to attack its territory a legitimate target.