US withdraws all B-1 bombers from British military base RAF Fairford

The Pentagon confirmed reports Sunday that the United States has withdrawn all B-1 bomber planes from Royal Air Force Fairford, the UK airbase where a suspicious incident triggered nearby evacuations. A statement from a Pentagon official said "we can acknowledge now that all US bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford have re-deployed to their home stations in the United States." The statement noted that "operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real-time." Police were called to the base in southwest England last Sunday after a local farmer reported a group of men with several vans engaged in "suspicious" activity. Read moreMystery over UK airbase scare as police find petrol but no explosives The scare forced evacuations at 85 homes near the airbase, which was used to launch strikes on Iran. Speculation about the motives behind the incident ranged from terror threat to fuel thievery, as energy prices in the UK hit record highs this week. Investigators said they did not find any explosives in the vans, but instead "a quantity of petrol was recovered," National Counter Terrorism Policing head Lawrence Taylor said. The five London-ba...