Man charged with assisting ‘foreign intelligence service’ after incident at UK base used for Iran strikes

The U.K. has said it had charged a man with an offense of assisting a “foreign intelligence service” over an incident at a military base used by the U.S. for strikes on Iran.

British national Mohmed Abdulkarim, 24, has been charged under the country’s National Security Act “following an incident involving RAF Fairford,” an air base in west England, prosecutors announced on Tuesday.

The Crown Prosecution Service said that, between Aug. 31 and Sept. 28, Abdulkarim is alleged to have engaged in “conduct that would likely materially assist a foreign intelligence service.”

“We believe that country to be Iran,” the U.K.’s head of national counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement.

Prosecutors also charged 24-year-old Nouman Essghir with “entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the UK”.

The men appeared in court in London on Tuesday morning.

“We have seen a range of incidents in recent months that we believe have been directed by the Iranian state,” Taylor added.

He added that five other men arrested in connection with the investigation remain on police bail.

“While some of the circumstances remain unclear, we are confident that this activity was conducted on behalf of a foreign intelligence service,” he said at a press conference later in the day.

“This is not a theoretical threat,” he added. “This is something we’re responding to every day at counter-terrorism policing, particularly in the case of Iran.”

Five people were initially arrested on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offenses near RAF Fairford on Sept. 28.

Abdulkarim was interviewed and charged after some re-arrests were made earlier this month, investigators said on Tuesday.

RAF Fairford had been used as the U.S. Air Force’s command outpost for operations from Europe and for American strikes on Iranian missile sites.

Announcing the charges made on Tuesday, Frank Ferguson, a chief prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said that they followed “a Counter Terrorism Policing investigation into a high-profile incident involving RAF Fairford.”

“We will continue to work closely with our partners as this complex investigation continues,” he said.

After the initial arrests in September, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. had moved its long-range bombers out of the U.K. in response to a threat “linked to Iran.”

Prime Minister Andy Burnham told lawmakers earlier this month that the incident was “highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran, almost certainly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard.”

Over the summer, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned it saw any military base involved in launching airstrikes on Iran as a legitimate target.

Tehran denied any involvement in the incident at RAF Fairford.