Fairford Residents Return Home as Rubio Alleges a Foreign Hand
The eighty-five households evacuated on Sunday have been told they can go home, though the cordon around the three vans stays in place. No one has been charged, no suspect named and no motive given. The American secretary of state went further than British police will: the episode “clearly involves the hand of a foreign actor”, Marco Rubio said, offering no evidence.
Two governments are now speaking with two different levels of confidence about the same investigation. Counter-terrorism officers have issued nothing at all today and are saying only that they are keeping an open mind, including the possibility of proxies working knowingly or unknowingly for a foreign state. Mr Rubio also picked at the bail decision, saying he knew “a lot of people are disturbed by the news that some of these people have been released”, which follows the president saying on Monday that he would have told the British not to grant it. The five are British nationals in their twenties, three from Westminster and one each from Camden and Willesden, and they remain under investigation on conditions that have not been published. Residents being allowed home is not the same as the scene being cleared. Watch whether anyone is charged before the bail date.