LONDON — Residents of several homes near a Royal Air Force base in western England were taken to a nearby leisure center on Sunday as police detained a number of men on suspicion of committing explosives offenses and military bomb-disposal experts began examining vehicles in the area.
Gloucestershire Police said officers evacuated people living in "a number of properties" in the village of Whelford, a short distance from RAF Fairford, and moved them to a local leisure center for shelter. The force said the situation had been "contained," and later added that a cordon remained in place around the affected area. "We'd like to reassure people that we believe this incident is contained," a police spokesperson said in a statement carried by The Associated Press.
Police said several men had been detained on suspicion of committing offenses under the Explosives Act, the British statute that governs the manufacture, storage, transport and possession of explosive materials. As of Sunday morning, authorities had not released the men's names, said how many officers were involved, or confirmed whether the arrests were connected in any way to the air base itself. Police also declined to say what items the officers had recovered.
The investigation has been handed to counter-terrorism police, who — according to Gloucestershire Police — take the lead in cases of this type as a matter of routine. That handover signals that authorities are treating Sunday's events as potentially more than a local criminal matter, though the referral alone is not an indication of a suspected terrorist attack. Detectives are expected to build a picture of what was happening at the properties, who was present and how the vehicles came to be in the area.
Whelford sits near RAF Fairford, a base in Gloucestershire that has long served as a key staging point for U.S. military transport and refueling missions. In recent months it has taken on a more prominent role: American forces have used the airfield for a limited number of strikes during the ongoing conflict with Iran. Following the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran on Feb. 28, the British government gave permission for the U.S. military to launch attacks on Iranian missile sites from Fairford.
Because of that role, the base is likely to be among the most closely watched military sites in the country, and incidents in the surrounding community are inevitably read through a security lens. Fairford's position — adjacent to small villages and rural farmland, rather than in the middle of a large urban area — means that disruption to nearby communities can be felt quickly and by a relatively small number of residents.
Britain's Defense Secretary Wes Streeting issued a statement thanking the emergency and specialist teams who responded. "We can be reassured that this is being dealt with," he said, adding that the response reflected the close coordination between police, the military and other emergency services.
Downing Street said Prime Minister Andy Burnham was being kept informed, receiving regular updates on the situation. His office said the government was monitoring developments but did not describe any specific security measures being introduced.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force said personnel based at RAF Fairford "remain vigilant." The spokesperson declined to discuss specific force protection measures, citing security reasons, and offered a general description of the military's approach: "We constantly assess a variety of factors that determine what measures we institute or modify to protect our installations, our people and their families."
Observers said the careful wording from both governments reflects a deliberate effort not to inflame public anxiety while a delicate investigation is still in its earliest stages. Announcing a heightened security posture at a working air base could, officials fear, be informative to anyone planning an attack, while understating the response risks appearing dismissive of residents.
For residents of Whelford, the immediate effects were more concrete: a cordon, a trip to a leisure center, and the sight of emergency vehicles and army bomb-disposal teams working at close range. Police asked the public to stay clear of the cordoned area, and said those who had been moved out would be able to return once the all-clear was given.
The arrests and the vehicle examinations are likely to dominate the next stages of the inquiry. Investigators will want to establish what was inside the vehicles being examined, who owned or drove them, whether the men detained have any links to proscribed organizations, and whether the material found falls under the Explosives Act. Because counter-terrorism police are running the case, the investigation could run for weeks or months, and those detained are likely to remain in custody for some time.
RAF Fairford itself has been a busy base for weeks amid the Iran conflict, and the U.S. Air Force's presence there is expected to continue for as long as operations require it. That leaves the base — and the villages around it — operating under a security posture that is elevated compared with peacetime, and it makes any suspicious incident in the area a matter of national interest as well as a local police matter. The authorities stressed on Sunday that the immediate threat had been brought under control, but the questions of motive and connection are likely to remain open for some time.
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