The mystery 999 call at RAF Fairford that points to one ‘terror plot’ scenario

Five men caught with vans full of petrol near the US airbase RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire may have been “criminal proxies” who were “duped” into a much more serious attack than they expected, former police officers have told The i Paper as counter-terror officers continue to investigate the case. The men, who are British and from north and west London, were arrested after one of their group called 999, The Times reports, leading to speculation they may pulled out of the plot at the last minute. Experts believe the group, who may have been regarded as vulnerable or already within the criminal underworld, may have been coerced into acting without knowing the full extent of the plot. Although the investigation remains ongoing, Andy Burham said there are “strong indications that Iran played a part”. The head of counter-terror policing previously said police were keeping an open mind but one possibility was the men “either knowingly or unknowingly working on behalf of a foreign state”. Shorts But Dominic Murphy, former commander of UK’s Counter Terrorism Command for the Metropolitan Police, told The i Paper: “They may have realised what they were doing and potentially got concerned and scared about that and called the police.” ‘Duped’ into plot The men were initially arrested on suspicion of explosives and then terror offences, but were released on bail on Monday. “Russia and Iran have been using criminal proxies for a very prolonged period of time to great effect to commit incidents and attacks and sabotage here in the UK,” said Murphy, who was involved in counter-terror policing for 22 years. “My own experience with Iran is that this is exactly the sort of thing they would do.” Tehran has denied any link with the incident, but both Iran, and Russia, have been known to use proxies to carry out crimes on their behalf on UK soil. With these kinds of hostile state attacks “we’re often talking about either people that might be considered vulnerable or are involved in criminality already”, Murphy added. “We have seen a lot of people being duped into doing something,” he said. “They might even think it’s set up as some kind of big prank or as something else. And it turns out to be a very serious activity that you’re conducting on behalf of a foreign state.” Murphy said he had seen people “self-report or hand themselves in” because they think they’ve got involved in something much bigger than they were expecting. He said the men who were arrested are of the typical profile, men in their early to mid-20s, hired by foreign states to carry out attacks in the UK. Call to draw out a response Suspicion has fallen on Iran because of a serious of attacks carried out by Tehran’s proxies in recent months, including attacks on synagogues. Roger Macmillan, an expert in Iranian counter-terrorism and former Director of Security at the London-based independent Iran International TV, thinks that if this is an Iranian attack, it represents a “significant” shift from those that have come before. The level of ” detail and planning” evident in the attack, which would have involved buying or renting vans, setting up a burner phone and travelling to Gloucestershire, makes Macmillan wonder if the “bizarre” 999 call had a hidden significance. “It could simply be that they have done this deliberately to signal some sort of intent, some capability…to instill fear in people,” he said. In this scenario, the men might have been told to call 999 to “actually draw out the response”. He said: “They might have been told, well, nothing happens by this time, call 999, you’re going to get arrested, but we’re going to pay you X”. If this was the plan, it’s been successful, Macmillan said: “They’ve had the UK talking about this non-stop for four days.” A ‘daft’ operation Andrew Barnes, former head of intelligence for the Metropolitan Police, who also previously held roles in counter-terror policing, thinks it’s “definitely a possibility” that one of the five men tried to alert the authorities when he realised the seriousness of the planned attack. “In many forms of crime and this kind of stuff, where people decide that it’s not what they want to do, it’s not what they thought, they back out,” he said. He is more sceptical of the idea that the operation was some kind of ‘dry run’ for a larger planned attack later on. “I would be surprised because obviously all that does is effectively is alert the authorities,” he said. “To plan going out with several vans and lots of people masked up and things like that….as a precursor to actually doing something is rather daft.” “Hostile reconnaissance is normally far more subtle than that,” he added.