Britain is sending RAF Typhoon fighter jets to help defend Saudi Arabia against Houthi missile and drone attacks. The move comes as the United States has pulled all of its B-1 bombers out of RAF Fairford in England, after police uncovered a suspected Iranian plot to attack the base with drones.
The Houthis are an Iran-backed group based in Yemen. Their attacks on Saudi Arabia have grown sharper in recent weeks. Earlier this month, drone debris from an intercepted attack killed two workers at a Saudi Aramco oil field, a story The Journel reported here. British ministers called the Houthi strikes “despicable”.
The Typhoons can fire Meteor, AMRAAM and ASRAAM missiles to shoot down incoming missiles and drones. Britain already supports the Saudi air force with an RAF Voyager refuelling plane. British artillery gunners are also in Saudi Arabia, guarding oil sites with Starstreak air defence missiles.
At RAF Fairford, the picture is very different. The US has flown about a dozen B-1 bombers back to their home bases in America. US officials said the threat to the base was a “real world incident”. Security experts say it is very unusual for the US to pull all its bombers home instead of moving them to another base nearby. It shows how serious the threat was judged to be.
Police say the suspected plot was loosely based on Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, in which drones hidden in trucks were used to hit parked Russian bombers. In the early hours of 27 September, armed officers stopped three vans near the Fairford base. They found petrol, but no explosives. Seven people have been arrested in the case in total.
This week, two men were arrested again under the National Security Act. One is a 24-year-old British man. The other is a 25-year-old man who holds both British and Iranian nationality. They are accused of helping a foreign intelligence service. No one has been charged yet. Laurence Taylor, the head of UK Counter Terrorism Policing, said it is highly likely that the Iranian state is involved. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said the plot was “almost certainly” the work of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Iran has denied any involvement.
Tehran had earlier warned that Fairford was a target, after US bombers used the base to launch strikes on Iran. Tensions across the region remain high, and the US and Israel are reported to be drawing up plans for fresh strikes on Iran, as The Journel reported here.
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