Wes Streeting has warned that the public has only a “partial picture” of the circumstances surrounding the suspected terror plot near RAF Fairford, after five men were arrested over alleged explosives and terrorism offences.
The arrests followed an overnight police operation in Gloucestershire in which armed officers stopped three vans travelling towards the military airbase, which is used by US bomber aircraft.
The incident has raised questions over how the suspected operation was detected, with counter-terrorism officers understood to be investigating whether Iran could be linked to the alleged plot.
Streeting, the health secretary, praised the member of the public who alerted police but cautioned against drawing conclusions from what she had witnessed.
“Thank you to that member of the public,” Streeting told Sky News.
“She has done exactly what we would hope that someone in that extraordinary situation would do.
“I’m really grateful to her – I think she acted, by her own admission, quickly and thoughtfully, and she did the right thing.
“With respect, though, she does only have a partial picture.
“And that’s as far as I wish to go this morning but I do want to emphasise my thanks to the police and the security services because their work takes place often unsung, unreported, for good reason.”
The comments came as investigators continued to establish what the five men were allegedly planning and whether the vehicles and equipment discovered during the operation were connected to a wider attempt to target the base.
Streeting declined to speculate on the potential motivation of those arrested.
“It would be very unwise of me to speculate on the potential motives of these individuals at this stage,” he said.
“What I can assure the public of, though, is that as this investigation unfolds, we will, in the normal way, say more about the individuals, their backgrounds and potential motivations. But there’s the investigation underway.”
The operation began after a local farmer travelling home from a party in the early hours noticed three white vans “blocking the road”.
She then saw what she described as a “large group of hooded and ‘balaclava’d’ men” nearby and contacted police.
The farmer said the men appeared to react when they saw her vehicle.
“They would have seen the bright headlights” and “they probably thought we were the police (and) panicked”, she said.
“It would appear that by doing so I just derailed whatever they were planning.”
Her account has raised questions about the circumstances in which the alleged plot came to the attention of authorities. The police operation was not intelligence-led, it is understood, meaning investigators had not previously identified a potential plot before the farmer’s call.
“A plucky amateur shouldn’t be spotting an unusual bit of activity at 1am when the air base is on high alert,” she told the Press Association. “I think it’s absolutely astonishing.”
The arrests have placed renewed focus on security around RAF Fairford, a strategically important US-linked airbase in Gloucestershire that has been used for long-range bomber operations.
For investigators, however, the immediate priority is establishing whether the men were acting together, what they intended to do and whether there was any wider network behind the suspected operation.
The fact that the initial warning came from a member of the public rather than an intelligence operation is likely to form part of the questions surrounding the case as counter-terrorism officers continue their investigation.
Streeting offered little further detail, stressing that investigators would disclose more when it was appropriate.
For now, the government is signalling that the arrests represent only one part of a developing investigation — and that the public account of what happened may be considerably narrower than the information held by the police and security services.
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