Terror Plot Stopped Near RAF Fairford | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

The Team House

The episode examines a recent security incident involving the arrest of five men near RAF Fairford, suspected to be an Iranian-sponsored plo

Key takeaways

• Five individuals were arrested near RAF Fairford after suspicious vans containing large barrels were identified by a local resident.
• The hosts suggest Iran is adopting a 'Russian MO' by outsourcing kinetic operations to criminal gangs to maintain deniability.

Main topics

• RAF Fairford terror plot
• Iranian proxy warfare tactics

Notable quotes

The Iranians, just like the Russian MO, this is the intelligence organs, are cracking out their kinetic operations to criminals and other gangs.

Conclusion

The episode highlights the increasing complexity of modern warfare, wh

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) All right, guys, we're back. Eyes on geopolitics. A lot happening as usual. I'm here with Jonathan Hackett, Mark Polymeropoulos, Andy Milburn. The big news that's breaking right now, or it's been breaking over the last, you know, several hours is five men caught near, God, what's the name of the base? I had it too. Fairford. What is it? Fairford. Fairford. Thank you, Andy. I Speaker 3 (0:24) can't understand you with the accent. Not Gloucestershire. Gloucestershire. And that's obviously where the U Speaker 5 (0:29) .S. Air Force houses B-1Bs and B-52s and stuff like that. We've been using it for the Iran operations as well. We still don't know exactly who's behind it. There's a picture released of the five guys on a curb. I'm assuming that's been confirmed that that's actually them and not like a bullshit picture. Speaker 5 (0:49) What else? There's a bit of like back and forth in terms of what was it intelligence related that like we tipped them off or, you know, maybe MI6 or whoever tipped off authorities to catch these guys. Or was it like a public report? Somebody called in and saw some suspicious vans called in and the police got them. Large barrels have been removed from the vans for examination. Army EOD disposal teams have been examining the vehicles and they've. Speaker 4 (1:14) They cut off like 400 meters. They evacuated like 80 Speaker 5 (1:17) some houses in that village right next to the airbase. And so people, Twitter is alight with this. So where do you guys want to start? What are you guys hearing? Is there anything new popping off? Let's go, Mark P. Speaker 4 (1:30) So a couple of things on this. Obviously, I think for a lot of us, Iran would be the likely culprit. The photos of the individuals just remember, don't read too much into that. They seemingly are accurate. But don't forget, the Iranians, just like the Russian MO, this is the intelligence organs, are cracking out their kinetic operations to criminals and other gangs. So just because someone looks like something. People are under arrest. You can't tell. I'm getting hints from European intelligence officials that it is Iran, but no one is willing to confirm this. I would think that the British are going to be sharing this with partners. And so I think that probably the British know a good deal right now, but they have to be exceedingly careful because this is a obviously an act of war on British soil. And so, you know, they got to get it right. And so they're smart, too. And the British are pretty professional on that. I mean, you saw the UK prime minister canceled all his meetings. This is this is really serious now. You know, we're speculating a little bit, but I think that, you know, there was something that occurred there. And I think all of us have said many times that, you know, the Iran war is not over. And part of the toolkit of Iranian intelligence would be operations like this. So it would certainly not surprise me. I think, again, lots of speculation. One other quick point on this. You know, a lot of us very frequently, while we use X, we kind of criticize it. In this case, the open source world, I think there's a lot of really interesting information to be gleaned from this. And there hasn't been actually irresponsible reporting yet. And so, you know, as when there's a crisis like this, you do actually end up following the OSINT sites. Speaker 5 (2:58) And so I think there's something Speaker 4 (3:00) to be said, as we all love to criticize this. But the last point is, you know, assuming there will be attribution. Boy, it's going to be interesting to see what the response will be. I mean, the U.S. is already striking targets in Iran, conceivably could start again. There will be huge pressure on President Trump to immediately do so if this is the Iranians. But what about the what about Europe? There's been so much controversy in Europe about their support or lack of or kind of behind the scenes support to the to the U.S. effort in Iran. you know, on one hand, if this was an Iranian sponsored plot in the UK, that could have killed a lot of people, there could be anger amongst the UK public. On the other hand, it could also be the opposite reaction, like this is what happens. Because the bottom line is, while there has been a lot of kind of hoopla over European states not supporting US military operations, the fact is they have, even in countries like Spain and Italy. And so the debate in Europe will be will be ranging, raging. But if you thought the Iran war was was over, assuming this is the Iranians. Clearly it hasn't. And the last piece, too, you mentioned, you know, was this intelligence driven? Was it, you know, just some little old lady in the side of the road? I mean, it could be the notion of, you know, that we all those all those funny slogans you see all the time, you know, see something, say something, pour something in, you know, maybe some some little old lady, you know, drinking her tea, you know, 70 miles northwest of London may have saved a mass casualty attack from occurring. Speaker 1 (4:22) Lots of. I'll mention if you've ridden the subway or the tube in London recently, you'll hear them say, see it, say it, sorted. And that's kind of their way of saying, see something, say something, or eagle eyes in the military, the U.S. military. There's all these programs where we're always encouraging people. If you see something weird out of baseline, say something about it because you're the one that saw it. Nobody else saw it. Right. So it's kind of that problem where if someone's having a problem on the street, let's say they're having a heart attack and everyone's just kind of standing around like, oh, my gosh, he's having a heart attack. You need to point at somebody and say, hey, call the police. because the observer effect is a real problem where people don't realize that they are actually the one that has the power to do something about it. They think somebody else with more qualifications will do it. And, you know, as a counterintelligence agent, usually I'm not the one out there actually seeing this stuff. I'm operating off of tips that other people have sent in and we're going to go look at that stuff. So it's very important that people see something. They do say something from somebody that I've been speaking with in the UK. They've noted to me that it was a woman who's lived in this village, Welford, for 30 years. We saw at 12.40 in the morning, vans staging. She said, we don't have vans in our village. And she called the police. This may or may not be totally like exactly what happened, but the person I've talked to is pretty credible. So I don't doubt it. The issue with intelligence generally, as Mark was mentioning with OSINT or any other types of stuff, in the intelligence community, we never typically give a yes or no answer. You know, if a higher up asks. is this attack happening? We don't typically say yes or no. We talk in probabilities. We talk about, you know, we've seen these different indicators and warnings of things happening. Taking all these together, we have this likelihood that we've assigned to this thing probably maybe happening. I think that's important here, too, where we and the outside are seeing a lot of indicators and things in social media and other places. We can never say for sure that X equals Y. And I think that if we if we do say that X equals Y in this case, we're making a mistake. And instead, we should observe the the indicators that we're seeing of, you know, these vans are in this location. There were black drums in the vans. Five individuals were arrested. They have a particular appearance. These are all indicators. These are all pieces of material. that we can kind of put together and we can never really have a perfect answer. And there's another piece, another indicator that's important to me as someone observing this is that the IRGC back in July issued a warning about this specific base. Because this base is the US 501st Combat Support Wing headquarters and the 420th Air Base Squadron, which hosts B-1B Lancers. And if you remember all the way back in June of last year, when we were striking the nuclear facilities the very first time, we were staging in other locations around like Diego Garcia, for example, we had 15 Lancers. there that participated in the strikes. The UK was a place where some of this was going on. The Iranians didn't like that. They've issued numerous warnings. But in July, it was a specific warning about this specific base, right? So that's another indicator to kind of put on the map of, you know, there's things pointing in the direction that this could be Iran-sponsored, Iran-directed, Iran-led, perhaps. And those three things I just mentioned, sponsored, directed, and led, are all different levels of involvement. You know, just like, remember with ISIS, there was... ISIS-inspired attacks versus ISIS-directed attacks, right? So this is very important as observers, as educated observers to look at this and kind of continue questioning it. Even as we get more material, we have to continue questioning the... The Speaker 3 (7:29) only thing I would add is, yeah, I mean, it does look, who knows, but it does look from reports in the BBC and even the president that it was, I say even the president, because at first he said working with... you know, UK intelligence week. But then in a comment afterwards, he said, yeah, I think maybe it was Scotland Yard. But in the UK media, it's reporting that it was indeed a local reporting suspicious activity, three black vans. So, you know, that's a great point. And the, you know, the US presence in these airfields in the United Kingdom, as you all know, has been long term, it's been since the Second World War. It's always been controversial. Do you remember in the days of Greenham Common and I mean, during the Cold War, there were massive demonstrations outside US bases against, you know, the fact that there was suspicion, say, of nuclear weapons being stored there. But by and large, you know, I'm not saying this because I'm half British, but by and large, you know, both the population and certainly the governments have been very supportive of US presence and not covered in the news. but covered, you know, and Mark just commented now, yes, the UK was a platform for these strikes, B-52s, B-1Bs. And also, of course, and Mark will know better than Mark and John, of course, know better than the rest of us, all the rest of us, a conduit of, a continuous conduit of intelligence, you know what I mean, throughout. Last thing, last comment I'll make, Mark made a really interesting comment about You know, what if it had been successful? What if there were civilian casualties? What would the reaction be? Well, it's difficult to judge a public reaction, you know, as a counterfactual. But I would point to the fact that, you know, if you remember 7 July 2005, there were bombings, Islamists. Speaker 3 (9:22) In fact, bombings in London on the tubes resulting in, I think it was 150 deaths or so. And the reaction, far from being, you know, this was an own goal, we should now disengage, was to be absolutely supportive of the ongoing campaign in Afghanistan. And that support, you know, the reaction of the British public, again, I'm not just saying this to help British, but you have to go all the way back to the Blitz, right? You know, bombing. civilian inflicting civilian casualties has had the opposite effect same thing with the ira you know the the the honestly the the probably the views of the british public about northern ireland were hey just cut it the loose you know let we don't care about it until the ira started bombing london in the 70s and then there was there was that increased support for the campaign support for operation banner for the troops And a feeling that, hey, no, that's part of the United Kingdom and fuck the IRA. So, yeah, these are the I mean, obviously, this wasn't intended to wear away at civilian morale. It looks as though this was intended as an act of sabotage. Speaker 4 (10:34) Can I ask a question to you guys, to Jonathan and Andy? You have these vans with explosives. What would be the intended target? Would it be the actual aircraft? Would it be just getting onto the base, inflicting mass casualty on U.S. airmen who are there? You know, I know that's speculating, and I would imagine that the U.K. security services may have the actual plans since they have these individuals in custody. But what and for both of you knowing the security at some of these sites. Let's say they, you know, the little old lady hadn't reported in and they have these explosive laden vans. You know, what are they trying to do? Speaker 3 (11:07) Well, that's a really good question. I was thinking about that. I was thinking the only way this made sense is if it was if they were planning to use a breaching, you know, one or two vans to breach their way in, detonate at the gate and then the others drive in onto the runway. Because, I mean, obviously you can't with the security on these stations, you can't simply just drive through. That's the only thing I can think would make sense. And some Speaker 4 (11:32) of the OSINT sites had the B1s actually parked in the open. So presumably that's what they were thinking. Speaker 1 (11:37) Yeah. Speaker 1 (11:39) So there's actually precedent for something similar to this, not the same organization, but in Afghanistan, 2012, September, there was an attack on Camp Leatherneck. And this was three squads of Taliban fighters that were able to actually cut the fence in a very sophisticated way to breach the fence. This was when Prince Harry was on the base as well, which was advertised in the media. That's why they chose that date to attack. They had the plan for a year. They were waiting to use it for a spectacular moment. And these squads had... multiple goals. It wasn't just one goal. What they had were actually phased goals. If they made it past the first objective, they would continue on with the understanding that they would die. So the goal first was to strike aircraft because those were closest to the fence. So they put some dynamite in the fuel tanks, blew those up, exploded some fuel bladders after that, kept fighting across the airfield. And their final destination was Prince Harry's tent, which was inside the Danish controlled area of the base. And so those were all phases and they knew they probably wouldn't achieve the final one, which was the Prince Harry strike. But that was okay as long as they actually entered the base. And after interrogating the only survivor of that, we learned that their goal was just to enter the base. That would be enough. If they could strike and kill, that was great. But just entering from their perspective was a success because it meant that they were able to do something against the Americans there. So if you look at the map of Raff Fairfield here, the place where the Welford village is at, it abuts right up against the fence where part of the aircraft have to turn. and come on after they've approached. So this is an area where they might get lucky and hit a Lancer. They might get lucky and hit something else. They might kill some people. These are probably all goals that belong to the same plan. And it probably wasn't a singular objective. Instead, it was, you know, make the Americans look bad, number one, which by breaching the fence and entering the base at all. would make the Americans look bad. It would also make the British look bad because British security is there for the exterior of the base as with any host nation airfield as well. It's also a British military base. So that would make the British generally look bad because they entered a British controlled facility. So there's