Terror Plot Stopped Near RAF Fairford | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

David Parke (0:00)

All right, guys, we're back, Eyes On Geopolitics. A lot happening as usual. I'm here with Jonathan Hackett, Marc Polymeropoulos, Andy Milburn. The big news that's breaking right now, or it's been breaking over the last several hours, is five men caught near, God, what's the name of the base? I had it too.

Jack Murphy (0:17)

Fairford.

David Parke (0:18)

Fairford, what is it?

Jonathan Hackett (0:20)

Fairford. Fairford. Fairford. Thank you, Andy.

Jack Murphy (0:24)

I can't understand you with the accent. The shirt, not Gloucestershire. Gloucestershire. Yeah.

David Parke (0:28)

And that's obviously where the US Air Force houses B-1Bs and B-52s and stuff like that. We've been using it for the Iran operations as well. We still don't know exactly who's behind it. There's a picture release of the five guys on a curb. I don't, I'm assuming that's been report, that's like been confirmed that that's actually them and not like a bullshit picture.

What else? There's a bit of like back and forth in terms of what, was it intelligence related that like we tipped them off or maybe MI6 or whoever tipped off authorities to catch these guys or was it like a public report, somebody called in and saw some suspicious vans, called in and the police got them. Large barrels have been removed from the vans for examination. Army EOD disposal teams have been examining the vehicles and they cut off like 400 meters, they evacuated like 80 some houses in that village right next to the air base. And so people, Twitter is alight with this. So where do you guys want to start? What are you guys hearing? Is there anything new popping off? Let's go, Marc P.

Marc Polymeropoulos (1:30)

So a couple of things on this.

Obviously, I think for a lot of us, Iran would be the likely culprit. The photos and the individuals, just remember, don't read too much into that. They seemingly are accurate, but don't forget the Iranians, just like the Russian MO. This is the intelligence organs, are cracking out their kinetic operations to criminals and other gangs. So just because someone looks like something, people are under arrest, you can't tell. I'm getting hints from European intelligence officials that it is Iran, but no one is willing to confirm this. I would think that the British are going to be sharing this with partners. And so I think that probably the British know a good deal right now, but they have to be exceedingly careful because this is obviously an act of war on British soil. And so, you know, they got to get it right. And so they're smart too, and the British are pretty professional on that. I mean, you saw the UK Prime Minister canceled all his meetings. This is really serious. Now, you know, we're speculating a little bit, but I think that there was something that occurred there. And I think all of us have said many times that, you know, the Iran war is not over, and part of the toolkit of Iranian intelligence would be operations like this. So it would certainly not surprise me. I think, again, lots of speculation. But one other quick point on this, you know, a lot of us very frequently, while we use X, we kind of criticize it. In this case, the open source world, I think there's a lot of really interesting information to be gleaned from this. And there hasn't been actually irresponsible reporting yet. And so, you know, as when there's a crisis like this, you do actually end up following the OSIN sites. And so I think there's something to be said as we all love to criticize this. But the last point is, you know, assuming there will be attribution, boy, it's gonna be interesting to see what the response will be. I mean, the US is already striking targets in Iran, conceivably could start again. There will be huge pressure on President Trump to immediately do so if this is the Iranians. But what about Europe? There's been so much controversy in Europe about their support or lack of, or kind of behind the scenes support to the US effort in Iran. You know, on one hand, if this was an Iranian sponsored plot in the UK that could have killed a lot of people, there could be anger amongst the UK public. On the other hand, it could also be the opposite reaction, like this is what happens. Because the bottom line is, while there has been a lot of kind of hoopla over European states not supporting US military operation, the fact is they have, even in countries like Spain and Italy. And so the debate in Europe will be will be raging. But if you thought the Iran war was over, assuming this is the Iranians, clearly it hasn't. And the last piece too, you mentioned, you know, was this intelligence driven? Was it, you know, just some little old lady on the side of the road? I mean, it could be the notion of, you know, that we all, all those, all those funny slogans you see all the time, you know, see something, say something, poured something in, you know, maybe some, some little old lady, you know, drinking her tea, you know, 70 miles northwest of London may have saved a mass casualty attack from occurring.