British security said they have arrested five men for possessing explosives and preparing for a terrorist attack. The five men were driving three vehicles toward a British air base, RAF Fairford, which houses a large number of U.S. aircraft that have carried out missions over Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump said the suspects had been under investigation by British security for some time and that they were suspected of preparing for a major attack on the base.
As of time of writing, the nationalities of the men have not yet been released. Given the target, and considering they were allegedly under surveillance for some time, the obvious assumption is that they are either Iranian or working for the Iranian government. Again, this is an assumption, not a stated fact.
I suspect that any facilities working with or housing U.S. forces or intelligence agencies have understood the possibility, or even the likelihood, of an Iranian counterattack to U.S. operations outside the Middle East. It’s reasonable to assume Western intelligence would anticipate attacks on friendly targets that would destabilize the U.S. and its allies. After all, these have happened before, most notably on 9/11.
A 9/11-type scenario could include the use of operatives already inside a target nation or the deployment of operatives to a target nation. For Tehran, it would make sense considering the Iranian military is largely unable to counter U.S. attacks with conventional military forces. Such was the operational logic of the 9/11 attacks, whereby al-Qaida inserted dedicated and trained operatives into the U.S. to carry out suicide attacks with hijacked aircraft. I would expect that intelligence and security services in the U.S. and allied countries are aware of this possibility and have focused on detecting and blocking any such operations. It would seem at this moment that at least one such operation was detected and thwarted.
I refer to 9/11 deliberately because I refer to it in the context of Iran’s nuclear program. In recent months, I have written that Iran gave sanctuary to the remnants of al-Qaida precisely because they shared some ideological elements. It was therefore understandable that Tehran developing nuclear capabilities sparked U.S. concern about the possibility of a nuclear 9/11. Clearly, the situation in the U.K. is different, save for the important fact that it appears to involve covert operations in what was seen by the Iranians as an enemy nation.
Lenin said that the purpose of terror is to terrify. Iran is at war with the U.S. and shows no sign of capitulating, and there’s little evidence to suggest it’s interested in reaching a ceasefire on U.S. terms. Given the limits of its military, its only option is to strike at its enemies with covert operations. As the war in Iran started, there were rumors about whether there were already Iranian operatives planted in the United States or elsewhere, and whether they would now be activated. And if the idea of Iranian sleeper cells was discussed outside the classified world, I would expect it was mentioned in the classified world too.
This alleged plot, albeit unsuccessful, seems to indicate the Iranian government is engaging in the only type of counterattack directly against the United States and its allies that it’s capable of doing. This will then be a war fought by intelligence and security services.
The fundamental issue is whether this was the only operation planned and if the only targets were military ones. There’s no reason to believe either is true, especially since the attack was designed to instill terror rather than to militarily defeat the United States. And it’s still possible that those arrested are not connected to Iran, even though I suspect they are. Or perhaps we will wake up tomorrow and find that this was just a misunderstanding, which I highly doubt.
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