The five men arrested near RAF Fairford in the early hours of Sunday were released on police bail on Monday afternoon. None has been charged. Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer, announcing the decision, said it did not mean the investigation was over.
"I can confirm that following extensive interviews and enquiries, the five men who were arrested are being released on police bail this afternoon," said Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, the head of Counter Terrorism Policing, in a statement published by the network at 4pm. "To be very clear, this does not mean the investigation is over. They are subject to stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others. They absolutely remain under investigation as we explore multiple lines of enquiry."
Residents of Whelford, the village of about 85 evacuated households a short distance from the base, were told they could go home. "Thanks to the excellent work of the army's explosive ordnance disposal team, the scene is now safe," the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said, as reported by the Press Association.
That is the British account, and it is a careful one. Over the same two days, the American account went a good deal further.
The first deadline, not the last
On Monday this publication set out the clock the police had chosen. The men were held under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act rather than the Terrorism Act's 14-day regime. Under PACE a suspect can be held for 24 hours, a superintendent can extend that to 36, and anything beyond 36 hours needs a warrant from a magistrates' court, up to an absolute limit of 96.
The bail decision came at the first of those limits. The men were arrested in the small hours of Sunday; they were released on Monday afternoon, roughly a day and a half later. Police did not go to a court to ask for more time, and they did not switch the men to the Terrorism Act, which would have allowed up to two weeks.
That is informative in the way that the absence of an action can be. Detectives who believed they needed the men in custody to secure evidence or prevent harm had routes to keep them there, and did not use them. Bail with conditions on movement and contact is the tool for an investigation that expects to continue for some time without the suspects in a cell. Under PACE as amended in 2022, pre-charge bail runs for an initial three months and can be extended.
It does not mean the police believe the men are innocent. It means that at the 36-hour mark the evidence was not in a state to charge, and the police judged that the risk could be managed outside custody.
What the British side has said
On the substance, three things have come from the British side, and only one of them is from the police.
The Press Association has reported that the material found was not viable explosives. Police have not confirmed that, and have still not said publicly what was in the three white vans, around which aerial footage showed large dark barrels.
The PA and the BBC have reported that the operation was not intelligence-led. On their account, the arrests began with a phone call from a local farmer who saw the vans and, by her own later description to reporters, a group of hooded or masked people she estimated at between eight and ten. Only five men were arrested. The Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, thanked her but said she had "a partial picture".
And Taylor has said, in the most careful language available to him, that a foreign state is one of the possibilities. "I know there is significant interest in whether the current geopolitical context has a bearing on this incident," he said. "At Counter Terrorism Policing we are working within this context every day, and at this stage we are keeping an open mind in this investigation." Police were considering, he said, whether this "may be activity committed by proxies, or individuals either knowingly or unknowingly, working on behalf of a foreign state."
He added a general observation that is worth reading closely. The threat, he said, "often becomes visible to us as criminal activity, often at a small scale and committed by individuals whose primary aim is not terrorism but a quick financial gain." He did not say that described these five men. He did say it describes the pattern his officers are seeing.
What the American side has said
On Sunday, while the men were still in custody, President Trump told reporters: "We had them under view for a long time." He said they had been looking to do "big damage".
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an interview with Fox News reported on Tuesday, said the incident "clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor". He called it "a very serious situation", pointed to Iran as an example of those "who have openly threatened to attack American interests globally", and said there would be "repercussions" for any such attack "if it ever were to happen or even attempted". "There's a lot more news that will come out on this in the days to come," he said.
Neither statement came with evidence, and both sit awkwardly against the British record. If the men had been under watch for a long time, the account of an operation that began with a farmer's call is wrong, or the watching was American and not shared, or the President was describing something other than what happened. If a foreign actor is clearly involved, it is not clear to the officer running the investigation, who on the same afternoon described his mind as open.
Taylor appeared to have the gap in view. "I am also very conscious that there is a great deal of speculation about what may or may not have been known previously about potential threats or activity," he said. "I will not always be able to share this type of information."
The claim about Iran, three days on
On Sunday we wrote that no named official had alleged Iran directed anything. That remains true in the strict sense: Rubio named Iran as an example of a threat, not as the actor, and Trump, according to The Media Line, said only that the men "might be" connected to Iran. Iran's embassy in London has denied any involvement.
But the position has moved. A British police chief has now said, on the record, that a foreign state acting through proxies is being considered. An American secretary of state has said that a foreign actor is clearly involved. The distance between those two sentences is the story this week.
What happens next
The five men, who have not been named, are free under conditions and remain suspects. The next fixed point is a charging decision by the Crown Prosecution Service, and under pre-charge bail it could be weeks or months away. Until then, what was in the vans, who else was in the fields, and what the Americans say they knew, will be answered, if at all, by leaks and by officials speaking to cameras rather than in a courtroom.
Every quotation from Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor is from Counter Terrorism Policing's release "Update on RAF Fairford investigation – 16:00 28 September 2026", read in full on counterterrorism.police.uk by this desk on the morning of 29 September; the facts of the arrests are from the same release and from the force's 12.30pm release of the same day. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's statement, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting's remark and the Press Association's reports that the material was not viable and that the arrests were not intelligence-led are as carried by Australian Associated Press with PA and AP (29 September); the not-intelligence-led characterisation is also attributed to the BBC and PA by IBTimes UK (28 September, 6.39pm BST). The farmer's account and Streeting's description of it as a "partial picture" are as reported by Stars and Stripes (Jennifer H. Svan) and IBTimes UK (Seneca Cabrera, 29 September, 7.18am BST). The COBRA meeting and the Associated Press's list of possible links under investigation are from the AP report carried by PBS NewsHour (Alastair Grant and Jill Lawless, updated 2.04pm ET, 28 September). President Trump's words are as quoted by IBTimes UK; the Washington Times report of them refused automated retrieval. Marco Rubio's words are as quoted by The Media Line (29 September), which does not name the Fox News programme or date; CNN's report of them returned HTTP 451 and nothing here rests on it. Police have not said what was in the vans. The position on pre-charge bail is that set by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 as amended by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Nobody has been charged, and the five men have not been named. Accurate to 8.30am ET, 1.30pm UK time, on Tuesday 29 September 2026.
Topics worldunited kingdomunited statescounter terrorismpolicingraf fairfordiran
