|
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volume 56 Number 30, October 17, 2026 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
The Cradle, October 13, 2026
The Iranian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned claims by the British Prime Minister that Tehran was behind an alleged terror plot at the RAF Fairford Base, saying this is a "false-flag" scheme to push an "anti-Iran agenda".
"The British government cannot evade its political and legal responsibility for its claims and their potential consequences by hiding behind ambiguous language without providing solid evidence and substantiated reasons," the ministry stated.
The statement said London is leaning on phrases such as "highly likely" and "almost certainly" to make pinning the incident on Iran look convincing, in a transparent bid to avoid answering for groundless charges.
The ministry added that Britain has a known history of manufacturing security allegations against other states, some of which have fuelled destructive tensions in West Asia, and that London must answer for its persistent attempts at undermining international peace and security.
Tehran rejected the "baseless accusations" against it, saying the British government, along with those who devised and carried out the false-flag operation, will bear the consequences.
The Iranian response follows Andy Burnham's claim to Parliament that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was "almost certainly" behind the suspected plot, as London slapped sanctions on two Iranian nationals over alleged "hostile activity".
"We will not tolerate these threats on our soil," Burnham said, vowing to go after Iran's use of criminal networks and the money behind them, and to roll out further sanctions.
London has yet to publicly produce any conclusive proof of Iranian involvement.
On September 30, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Burnham that he was "barking up the wrong tree", after the British PM cited "strong indications" of an Iranian role in a BBC interview without offering a shred of evidence, saying only that more would be revealed later.
The case dates back to September 27, when police arrested five British men near the base in the early hours on suspicion of terrorism and explosives offences, following reports of masked figures clustered around three white vans nearby.
A bomb disposal robot was sent in, and more than 85 nearby homes were evacuated, yet police found no explosives in the vans, only an unspecified amount of gasoline.
All five men were later freed on bail, a decision Burnham defended and US President Donald Trump publicly questioned.