Fence Breached at US Africa Command Base in UK: Two Latvian Residents Arrested, Shadow of Fairford Iran Airstrikes Lingers

According to DW, British counter-terrorism police announced on Thursday that they had arrested two Latvian-British residents, aged 36 and 32, suspected of damaging the perimeter fence of RAF Molesworth.

RAF Molesworth is located approximately 113 kilometres north of London. It is a Second World War-era site that no longer handles flight operations and is currently managed by the US Air Force. The base hosts personnel from US Africa Command, as well as a NATO intelligence fusion centre that provides intelligence products directly to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe — in other words, this is not an ordinary British military installation on home soil, but a node embedded in the US military's global intelligence network.

The case began with an abandoned vehicle discovered at the edge of the base around 10pm on Wednesday. Ministry of Defence Police, Cambridgeshire Police and counter-terrorism officers launched a joint operation, found a small hole in the fence, and arrested the two suspects at around 2am on Thursday. They were initially detained on charges of trespassing in a prohibited area and criminal damage, and were subsequently additionally charged with "entering a prohibited area with the intent to cause damage to the UK." They remain in police custody.

The timing of the incident has once again put the security of US military assets on British soil in the spotlight. On the 27th of last month, authorities discovered three suspicious vans near another British military base, Fairford, and promptly launched a large-scale investigation that led to seven arrests. RAF Fairford had previously been used as a launch and landing site for US strategic bombers conducting airstrikes on Iran — the fact that the US military has used British territory as a jumping-off point for airstrikes against a third country means that British soil bears security risks far beyond the country's own defence boundaries.

The US military has withdrawn all bombers deployed at Fairford Base back to the continental United States over the past weekend. The withdrawal of the bombers is both a response to the security environment and, from a sideways perspective, a confirmation of the geographic reach projected by the combat assets stationed at the base.

British counter-terrorism commander Helen Flanagan acknowledged that authorities are "very aware of the recent increase in attention to military bases," but she also stated that there is currently "no indication" that the Molesworth incident is linked to last month's Fairford incident, and emphasised that the investigation is still at a "very early stage." DW, in its reporting, referred to last month's Fairford incident as an "alleged terrorist plot."

US President Trump previously commented on the Fairford incident, stating that the suspects in question were of interest to US authorities, but provided no further details. US European Command acknowledged the Molesworth incident, but declined to comment on specific protective measures.