London releases a British-Iranian on bail in connection with the Fairford base incident

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The British authorities released a British-Iranian dual national on bail after his arrest in connection with the security incident at the American-run British Fairford Air Base in England.

The police counter-terrorism unit said in a statement that the 25-year-old man was arrested on Thursday in central London, and that police searched two properties in the British capital.

“The investigation into the circumstances of the events that occurred in Gloucestershire is still ongoing,” police added in a statement.

Five men, all British citizens in their twenties and from London, were initially arrested early Sunday morning on suspicion of involvement in explosives-related and terrorism-related crimes near the Royal Air Force's Fairford base, which US bombers used to launch strikes on Iran.

The five suspects were later released on bail. British authorities linked the incident to Tehran.

Dozens of residents were evacuated from their homes near the base, with armed police and army bomb disposal experts moving towards the rural area.

The police later said that they found a quantity of highly flammable gasoline inside three pickup trucks, linked to the five suspects, but they did not find any explosives.

The mystery increased after British media reported that one of the suspects who were initially arrested was the one who alerted police officers to the incident. But the police did not comment on these reports.

Washington, in turn, increased the ambiguity surrounding the incident, by criticizing the release of the suspects and declaring the involvement of a hostile country at an early stage of the investigation.