Yes but that doesn’t mean cleared, they are still under investigation:
Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) said officers were exploring “multiple lines of inquiry”, including whether proxies or individuals working on behalf of a foreign state were involved.
The five men are all UK nationals in their 20s from London.
They were initially detained on suspicion of committing offences under the Explosives Act and then further arrested on suspicion of preparation of a terrorist act.
Counter-terror police said they remained under investigation and their release was “subject to stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others”.
There remains the possibility that they are patsies, hired to do something they didn’t realise was a major crime - or did and are purely mercenary. But I still think a) if there’d been a viable bomb they wouldn’t be released and b) even very dumb criminals might be expected to think twice when asked to something involving the words “bomb” and “American airbase”.
The big clue that they are not highly motivated terrorists is the “released on stringent conditions” aspect. It’s hard to believe, but actual agents of enemy powers are so unethical that they even break promises not to contact their handlers and disappear. The risk mitigation for “what if they break these conditions” is not “we’ll launch a full-scale manhunt and put every military, nuclear or otherwise sensitive site on maximum alert”, it’s “we’ll pick them up at their granny’s, where they’ll be watching football in their underwear”.
As others said, if Trump said they were watching these guys, he’s lying. I hope someone at a press conference asks/asked him the obvious question as to why they weren’t stopped earlier. Only so that whatever BS he vomits can be tossed right back in his face when it turns out that these guys weren’t terrorists at all.
“Sir, yesterday you said US Intelligence was aware of the suspected terrorists and the reason, according to you, they weren’t picked up earlier is because you had alerted the local authorities and it was them that failed to follow up on your warnings. We’ve since found out that they weren’t terrorists but rather just a couple of locals out stealing copper, why was the US watching them in the first place”.
Of course, the ‘right’ answer to that would be ‘just because they were caught stealing copper doesn’t mean they’re not also terrorists, they can do other, non-terrorist things too’, or something like that, but he can’t think that fast and would, almost certainly, start lobbing insults at the reporter that asked him.
This story feels really weird to me. I’m expecting some sort of turn. Were these guys planning to shoot off fireworks as a protest? Were they playing Paintball? Were they pranking their pal who works on the airbase?
Trump is desperate for an October surprise and really really wants this to be that surprise. But it doesn’t feel right.
So far candidate explanations I’ve seen raised by more or less well informed commentators are, in descending order of likelihood:
Rural crime - fuel theft (their van had fake logos and contact details for a fuel company, oil barrels etc.)
Rural crime - general theft (there’s a lot of it about)
Sex stuff - five young men, deserted rural area, masks… god forbid people should have a hobby
Non-terroristic protest
Idiots hired to do something disruptive, in way over their head
Hired criminals who thought they knew what they are getting into.
Top two are favourites. E.g see what appears to be a genuine local news site, quoting military sources saying it was indeed fuel theft:
Basically it looks like the dumbest of dumb luck, or dumb… dumbness, that they picked for their stealthy midnight raid a farm right next to a secure installation on high alert.
No worries, happily this story seems to be in the genre of light comedy rather than high-octane thriller.
We’ve got bumbling crooks, a local farmer, big-city counter-terrorism cops, a twitchy base commander, neither casualties nor actual threat, kneejerk racebaiters beclowning themselves and a US administration trying to will its paranoid fantasies into existence in the teeth of the evidence.
With the added detail that the recent surge in fuel prices that prompted the initial escapade is entirely due to Trump’s witless attack on Iran, we achieve a pleasing symmetry, the faintest of nods towards actual social commentary and, if we get the casting right, awards galore.
(The cameo scene of the Iranian Ambassador juggling three phones, on one of which he is claiming credit back home, on the next protesting innocence to the UK authorities and on the third trying to find out what the hell’s going on should alone be worth a nomination.)
I hadn’t heard about the logos so I think fuel theft is probably what what happening. But I had been thinking it could have been just routine-illegal construction/works dumping. The quiet edges outside of a base like that are probably just what you’d look for to ditch (hey, literally!) a couple vanloads of shingles or old paintcans or machining sludge.
In that vein, the latest headline is that the farmer’s call to the police was the second they recieved, the first came from… one of the suspects.
Absolute scenes.
Coupled with the fact that they were found with petrol not diesel, this does push “patsies hired to do some damage, the serious criminality of which they did not understand” back up the plausibility list. “Guys who followed enough political TikTok that they kept chatting and chatting online about how someone should do something, and recently made a new friend who could hire a van” may be a decent outside bet.
Our putative movie now has a scene of the brightest, or least dim, of the crew noticing sign after sign about “high security area” and “armed response” and hemming and hawing his way to "…um guys?"before being shushed, then surreptitiously reaching for his phone.
Theft of fuel, of farm machinery, theft of stock, has been a big thing here for years, long before the current thing with Iran. The police are largely absent from the countryside and farmers dare not use guns or they will be in a lot more trouble than the thefts are causing them.
Ok, apparently Andy Burnham has said there are “strong indications” Iran is involved, he’s nonetheless said releasing on them strict bail conditions was appropriate, fuck knows what’s happening, maybe Uber but for terrorists is a thing now.
