The United States rushed over the weekend to withdraw all 12 B-1 Air Force bombers from an air base in southern England after commanders received new threats regarding an Iran-backed plot against the installation. Such rapid redeployments from an allied air base in a peacetime country thousands of miles from a combat zone are highly unusual. The necessity to evacuate R.A.F. Fairford was viewed as so critical that certain planes and their flight crews departed while aerial refueling aircraft were still being scrambled to back their flights to the United States. By Sunday, at least three of the aircraft had landed at their home base in South Dakota, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to address operational details. The Pentagon’s European Command verified on Sunday that the bombers departed England but refrained from commenting on any fresh warnings. “We can acknowledge now that all U.S. bombers that were deployed to R.A.F. Fairford are redeploying to their home stations in the United States,” the command noted in an official statement. Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Defense chose not to comment on the repositioning of U.S. military assets. American officials refrained from detailing the specific nature of the new information that triggered the swift exit of the Air Force bombers, some of which had arrived just days prior during a routine force rotation. One U.S. official indicated that the new intelligence formed part of identical threat warnings originating three weeks prior, though specific details and a heightened sense of urgency escalated sharply over the preceding 24 hours, causing deep alarm among commanders.
Source: nytimes.com
