The United Kingdom has attributed a suspected plot targeting RAF Fairford to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), describing the assessment as “highly likely” to have been coordinated in Iran and “almost certainly” directed by the IRGC. Prime Minister Andy Burnham gave that assessment to Parliament on 12 October, more than two weeks after police arrested people near the Gloucestershire base. The UK’s public attribution is a government intelligence judgment, not a finding reached through a completed public criminal trial.
The episode matters both as a counterterrorism…