The five men arrested near an airbase in England are being released on bail

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1:18Hello and welcome to NewsHour live from the BBC World Service in London. I'm Rebecca Kesby. Counter-terror police here in the UK say they're keeping an open mind on who is behind the foiled airbase plot at the weekend. They're considering numerous angles, they say, including the possibility that the five men arrested at the scene could have been proxies working on behalf of a foreign state. Within the past few hours, the five men, all British nationals, all in their early 20s and all who live in London, have been released on police bail, while the investigation continues. More on that in a moment.

1:56But it seems the successful interruption of the plot in the early hours of Sunday morning came as a direct result of a tip-off from a vigilant local resident, a hero farmer, as she's being dubbed in the media, here. Driving home from a party, she stumbled across suspicious activity in a country lane close to the RAF Fairford Air Base in Gloucestershire in southern England. And the farmer spoke to the BBC but wanted to remain anonymous, so we voiced up her words. I was coming home late from a party. On reaching our farm, I found both the driveway and the road blocked by three white vans. We were aware that RAF Fairford was operating at a high security level and that civilian staff had been evacuated.

2:41We had noticed some activity from what I assumed were plainclothed police officers for the previous few days, so initially I thought perhaps this was more of the same. I had no choice but to turn my vehicle around and return back the way I came. On driving a short distance from the vans, I saw a large group of hooded and masked men. When they saw me, they ran ahead of me, some into the field and some towards the neighbouring village of Kempsford. I then realised that something highly unusual was taking place. In light of my awareness of a security threat to the base, I immediately called the MOD police.

3:19The phone rang out and they didn't answer. At 1.36am, I called 999 to report what I'd seen. Within ten minutes, the village was full of armed police. I think it was pure luck that I arrived in the village at a similar time to the vans I am absolutely staggered that it was left to me as a member of the public to see and report this the airbase were operating a roadblock close to the entrance to the base but not on any of the other roads but we assumed someone would be monitoring the roads around the base perimeter and taking regular patrols in the village clearly this was not happening and I believe that my 999 call foiled whatever plans they had.

4:04Even more surprising that following my call at 1.36am, the police were aware of the presence of the three vans but didn't evacuate the village until 6am. No one from the police has been in touch to ask me anything about it. I think they were hyper-focused and vigilant about the base itself and had absolutely no regard for our village. Those are the words of the local farmer being called a hero for raising the alarm. Well, Assistant Commissioner Lawrence Taylor is head of the counter-terrorism policing in the UK and a few hours ago he updated reporters on the investigation so far. I can confirm that following extensive interviews and inquiries, the five men who were arrested are being released on police bail this afternoon.

4:50To be very clear, this does not mean that 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 inquiry. I also know there is significant interest in whether the current geopolitical context has a bearing on this incident. At Counter Terrorism Policing we are working within this context every single day and at this stage we are keeping an open mind in this investigation. We have, as you would expect, ensured that our protective security advice and posture remain commensurate to the threat.

5:34But be assured we are considering this from every possible angle including that this may be actively committed by proxies or individuals either knowingly or unknowingly working on behalf of a foreign state. Lawrence Taylor there, head of counterterrorism policing in the UK. Well, the decision to release the men on police bail has been met with some surprise, including that of the US President Donald Trump. I'm surprised if they released him, I wouldn't have done that. Look, they've been very good. They worked with us very closely. We know everything about them. We would not have released them.

6:14President Trump speaking a short time ago. Let's get into some of the details then and what we can read in to some of those comments from the police and from our eyewitness farmer. Michael DeShire is the chief UK correspondent for the New York Times and he joins us live. Michael, first of all, RAF Fairford is of course used by US forces including recently against Iran and so, you know, it's a huge concern for the United States. Let's get into the releasing under police bail of the five suspects. Why have the police taken that step? I think that's a really good question, and I think it leaves all of us wondering exactly what the last 24, 48 hours have added up to.

7:00I think those of us who've been watching this carefully since Sunday morning when the five men were arrested were clearly under the impression that the police were moving very quickly to build a real terrorism case against these men. And they had arrested them under suspicion, both of explosives and for planning a terrorist act. And we all saw that bomb robot, palm sniffing robot there, not just for a few minutes, but for hours and hours and hours, more than 24 hours, it continued to do its work. And so I think everybody is now surprised that somehow people who would have been involved with something that seemed like such a huge thing are released on bail like sort of common criminals.

7:48It's really surprising. I mean, I suppose there could be a chance they're going to watch what those men do and who they contact in the next few days. I mean, clearly they will be watched very carefully. I thought it was interesting listening to the farmer. She said there'd been plainclothed cops around the village in the previous days. Yeah, and in fact, that is, even before the men were released, one of the biggest questions that I had was, what, if anything, the authorities either knew or suspected ahead of Sunday? There had been reports from people who lived in the villages around the base that there had been indications of greater security, big vehicles blocking entrances that they didn't normally block.

8:37As you say, people seeing increased security, plainclothes people. There was one report of a woman who said that one of her neighbors had been blocked from even getting onto the base, or getting into the area, even though they lived near the base. And so all of that suggested that they knew something was coming, or at least, you know, worried that something was coming. And of course, the president made comments that even heightened that concern. And yet, I think we still just don't know the answer. I mean, we did hear from the UK defence minister earlier this morning, Wes Streeting, replying to what the farmer said, saying she's not, she doesn't know the full picture at this stage.

9:20But I mean, one thing that struck me as well that our hero farmer said was that she saw a large group of men running away. And in the UK newspapers, she's quoted as saying she saw at least eight to 10 men. And so far, only five have been captured. This is still a very live incident, isn't it? Well, it could be. I mean, look, no offence meant to the farmer who, you know, sounds like she did exactly what officials want anybody to do. But eyewitness reports are sometimes quite unreliable. I mean, I've learned that over decades of reporting. Maybe she did see eight to 10 people. And in which case, I think the question is raised, where are the others?

10:05You know, sometimes at late at night, early in the morning, numbers can be misleading. But again, all of this points up to the question that is, you know, I think everybody is asking, which is why haven't the police been more forthcoming? It is a live investigation, but I think they do kind of owe it to people, especially the people who live by the base, to be a little bit more forthcoming. Well, let's look at what they did say. This was the Assistant Commissioner Lawrence Taylor speaking. He said they're keeping an open mind. He also said the plot may be committed by proxies or individuals either knowingly or unknowingly working on behalf of a foreign state.

10:45And he told the public to be vigilant to suspicious criminal activity. What do you read into that? Well, so the part that he talked about proxies, that is something that intelligence officials and counterterror officials sort of around the world have been concerned with in recent months, in the last couple of years. that one of the tactics that both Russia and Iran and some other of these rogue nations have used is not so much sending their own people to commit terror acts, but rather, you know, recruiting, you know, lower level, essentially criminals in places, sending them out, paying them a little bit of money, sending them out to do things.

11:33There have been incidents here in Britain, obviously, of arson fires, the burning of the former prime minister's house, etc. And those aren't necessarily people who always know kind of what the connections are to a greater terrorist plot. They're being paid to do a job and they don't necessarily know. I think that's what the counterterror chief was getting at. I don't think we know if that's the case here, but at least it's a possibility. Well, and the fact that he brings it up does rather kind of make people wonder. I mean, the two big suspicious countries that people in the media are pointing to are possibly Iran.

12:18I mean, you know, this base is being used as part of the U.S. efforts against Iran and Russia, the old enemy. You know, there's been plenty of attacks, you know, just looking at the poisonings and so on in the UK in the past. But if it was proved and if the police could prove a direct link with proxies to a state, the consequences of that could be far more serious, couldn't they? Far more serious, a real, real escalation by either of those two places, by either Russia or Iran. The idea of a direct attack sounds like it would be a huge escalation and much further than they have gone to date. I will say, having covered this kind of stuff for many years, if they really thought that that was the case, it's hard to imagine that they would let these guys go on bail.

13:14Very interesting. So, I mean, in terms of where this leaves air bases across the UK, as you mentioned, they've been on heightened alert for a while. But I mean, is it concerning that, you know, that seems to have been a tip off from an eyewitness that alerted them to this specific event on Sunday morning? I mean, sure. Look, I think that the people who are on the bases around the UK and the people who live near them are no doubt on edge, on a higher state of alert. The threat levels have been increased, I think, at several of the bases, especially where the U.S. has a big presence. And I think the admonition from Mr.

14:05Taylor to the public to be vigilant and to report anything that looks out of the ordinary, I suspect that if I was living by a base, I would pay attention. We must leave it there, Michael Shear. Thank you. Still to come, it's the centenary of one of the most iconic roads in the U.S. Ever planning to motor west. Jack, take my way. It's the highway that's the best. Get your kicks on Route 66. That's Chuck Berry there, of course. But do people still get their kicks on Route 66? We'll hear more about it coming up later. Our headlines this hour. Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences in the heart of Kiev has been hit by a drone strike as Russia increasingly focuses its attacks on the city.

15:00And as we've been hearing, the five men arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act near a British air base are being released on police bail.

15:16This is Rebecca Kesby with NewsHour live from the BBC. Now in Yemen, fighting is intensifying around the Yemeni city of Tayyip, where government forces are trying to hold a new advance by Houthi fighters closing in on the city. The BBC is the first international news organisation to reach Yemen since the Houthi seized the strategic Red Sea port of Mokka earlier this month. Their advance matters far beyond the country's borders. Mokka lies close to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world's most important shipping routes. Disruption there would affect global trade and energy supplies already hit by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

15:58Our international investigations correspondent, Nawal al-Maghaffi, has spent the past week in tyres, travelling with government forces on the front line closest to Moqa. We're driving through the valleys of tyres with the Yemeni forces, heading towards the front line. The sound of artillery echoes from afar, but the threat is very close. The Houthis are based just behind this mountain and the drone, whose drone is it? Is this a Houthi drone or a government drone? Should we come down? Spread out, spread out. Go, go, go. Mashi, mashi, mashi. We can hear a drone above and we've been told that it's a Houthi drone, so we're just taking cover.

16:46Go up the pathway there and come straight down to the road to the cars. OK. Go, go, go, go.

16:57Go, go, go, go.

17:03As we were leaving, we came across Ali. In this deserted village, he's chosen to stay. He sits outside the small concrete house he shares with his family. They're the only people left in their village. They refuse to leave their animals, their livelihood. I started by asking him, what's it like living here? Terrifying, but we can't afford to leave our home. Have they ever bombed close to your home? Yes, the shells fell here down the valley behind the school. Aren't you afraid that the Houthis might take this area whilst you're still here? It's in God's hands. What can you hear? This sounds like a machine gun.

17:46It's coming from down there. Do you know the difference between them now? Yeah. The Houthis' recent capture of Mokka and the strategic Baab al-Mendeb Strait has transformed the battle here. Now the fighting is pushing inland towards Taz. If they manage to take this city, their recent gains on the western coast will be virtually irreversible. Hundreds of families have fled to the El Munique camp, which is just a few kilometres from the front line. Dozens of children are playing on a red and blue slide and swing set. They're just a few of the 130 ,000 people displaced in Yemen since the beginning of September, according to the UN.

18:34In one of the stark white tents, I find Miriam. She fled from Mocha a week ago with her husband and six children. She sits weaving straw together by hand to make hats to sell, hoping to make enough to feed her family for the day. We left our cattle, our cows, the sheep. We didn't look back. We didn't lock our houses. We just left. Did you see the Houthis when they entered? Yes, I saw them when they came in. There were so many on the mountain, we didn't know where they came from. If you try and talk, they say shut up or we will shoot you. There's story after story of horror. These people have witnessed the unimaginable as they made their way here.

19:23And many of them have been displaced multiple times over. They're now waiting here anxiously because the Houthis are not far away from here. and they're terrified that they'll make it here next. The BBC's Nawal El-Maghaffi there with government troops in Yemen. Those troops supported, of course, by Saudi Arabia. The Houthis are backed by Iran. Well, earlier this morning, the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Fahd, arrived in Washington, D.C. for talks with the U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. So what does Saudi Arabia need from the U.S.? It's a question I put to Nawaf Obeid, former advisor to the Saudi government and now senior fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College London.

20:07What is needed is very technical, geospatial support, 24 hours geospatial reconnaissance in terms of getting a perfect battlefield picture, understanding the formations of the enemy, where the allied forces are. Because remember, this is a coalition. It's part of a joint forces command. Did the crown prince and indeed will the foreign minister ask for hardware, notably more air defences? So the air defences have come from different countries. Because the kingdom is such a large country, even though it has an excellent air defence, multilayer defence system. Which has been persistently attacked by Iran over the past six months.

20:54Correct, with some successes and with a lot of interjection. But if you allow me to finish my point, is that any country with that kind of geography will not be able to protect its respective strategic assets. They're just too many and they're too widespread. And so what the ask was, not just from the Americans, but from the Europeans as well, is to come in with respective air defenses to take over a certain asset. and to safeguard it. When the British came out with their contribution in London, the government was mocked because they were providing a tanker. But the British are contributing much more than that.

21:34They have very precious satellites and they've been of great help to the precision strikes that we're seeing happen day after day today. I mean, many people might look at the situation in Yemen at the moment where the Houthis seem to be taking ground, gaining ground on a daily basis. And they might say, isn't it time that Saudi Arabia actually committed to forces on the ground? Because at the moment, the government troops in Yemen are outgunned, they're outfought, and they can't hold key territory, can they? So actually, that's incorrect. In the last 72 hours, the Houthi advance has actually stopped.

22:12And on multiple fronts, they've actually started losing territory. And what you have here is that you have an intelligence battle that is beginning to be lost by the Houthis. So the capital has been struck, the different fronts has been struck. So I would be very careful about phrasing it as advancing, collapsing, which is not the case. Okay, but I mean, we do know that the Houthis have fired rockets towards Mecca in the past few weeks, also Riyadh. They're bearing down on Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which is very crucial, certainly at the moment, to Saudi oil exports. I mean, I think around two thirds of Saudi oil exports goes through there at the moment, or has been because of the situation in the Strait of Hormuz.

22:57Economically, if they do totally take that strait in the Red Sea, that's going to be very problematic, isn't it, for Saudi Arabia? That will be extremely problematic. This is what is called a dire national security threat in this case, not just for Saudi Arabia, but for the world economy. But what's not being discussed is the upcoming retaliatory campaign that's gaining steam. And it will happen because you cannot have a situation where the Houthis are allowed to control the Bab al-Mandam. But I suppose the question there is, don't you feel let down by the United States saying that they won't directly get involved with the situation against the Houthis?

23:38Because let's face it, it was Washington that started this war on Iran. Regional countries advised against it, including Saudi Arabia, I'm sure. We have to put this into context. The question is, let's say President Trump has said, yes, we will come in and help you. They're not going to bring troops underground. they're just going to keep hitting. Now I've obeyed their former advisor to the Saudi government now teaching at King's College London.

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