UK police said they have arrested a 22-year-old British man on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts in relation to the alleged attempt to attack RAF Fairford late last month.
The move marks the seventh arrest relating to the incident at the Gloucestershire air base. Six British men in their twenties had previously been arrested on suspicion of terrorism but were later released on bail.
Police said on Tuesday that they made the latest arrest in Westminster, London, and also searched a property in the area.
Vicki Evans, senior national co-ordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said: “This remains a live investigation and our specialist teams continue to pursue multiple lines of enquiry into the circumstances surrounding events near RAF Fairford.”
“We are working around the clock, and at pace, to identify the motivation behind events in Gloucestershire. We remain committed to investigating all possible angles,” she added.
The latest arrest comes after the US abruptly withdrew 12 B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford over the weekend. Officials said on Tuesday that the move was prompted by warnings about a possible Iranian drone attack on facility.
Washington believed the suspected plot could have involved short-range weaponised drones launched at a distance from the air base to strike aircraft and personnel inside, the officials added.
RAF Fairford is a vital foreign US military installation from which it has launched bombing raids against Iran.
The details of the last month’s incident, in which police arrested a group of men who had been behaving suspiciously near the air base, have remained largely unclear, with officials offering limited and at times contradictory accounts.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump said the Pentagon pulled its bombers from RAF Fairford after “some threats” were made to the UK air base.
“They didn’t fly out by accident,” Trump said as he was departing the White House for Nebraska on Monday. “There were some threats.”
The president added: “Rather than tempting the enemy, we’ll capture the enemy and beat the enemy. But why should we leave [the bombers] there? So we moved them around a little bit.”
However, US secretary of state Marco Rubio on Monday played down any link between the withdrawal of the planes and perceived threats to the base.
“The Department of War is constantly relocating resources where they need to be,” Rubio said. “We’ve documented what happened last week, I wouldn’t directly tie that to the move that was made.”
The US maintains hundreds of personnel at RAF Fairford. Iran has listed the air base as a “legitimate target for our forces”.
The suspected plan to strike the base in Gloucestershire has echoes of the Ukrainian attack on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet known as “Operation Spiderweb” in June 2025. In that incident, Ukrainian teams infiltrated explosive-laden drones near air bases in Russia and destroyed nearly a dozen aircraft on the ground.
A drone attack on an air base would mark a significant departure from the past pattern of Iran-linked activity in the UK.
Police and security forces have disrupted scores of Iranian plots in the UK in recent years. They have included several arson incidents, such as the firebombing of a synagogue at Kenton in north-west London in April.
Such plots have also been heavily reliant on hired proxies, some of whom have been misled about the nature of what they were doing.
Washington’s decision to withdraw the planes has come amid concern that more than seven months after the US launched the Iran war, Tehran may target American assets and allies beyond the Middle East.
US vice-president JD Vance on Monday said: “We do feel with some confidence that the Iranians are trying to do what the Iranian state has done for 49 years, which is engage in acts of terrorism against the United States.”
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said there were “strong indications” that Iran was involved in the incident near Fairford. Tehran has denied any role.
On Monday, Burnham’s spokesperson said that the base was safe and added: “We are not going to comment on foreign nations’ military operations.”