Abstract:
US President Donald Trump said the threat of new terrorist attacks has prompted the country to move its B-1 bombers from bases in the UK. "They did not fly away by accident," Trump told the media on Monday. "There is some threat. Instead of provoking the enemy, we should catch the enemy and defeat the enemy. But why should we leave them there? So we moved a little bit, and it was not very far."
The bombers were moved from RAF Fairford to their home ports in the American Midwest.
Previously, Vice President J.D. Vance also revealed that the transfer was "out of an abundance of caution and to protect our people."
The United States evacuates all bombers from British bases that were threatened by terrorist attacks.
Vance said the U.S. government has "a certain degree of confidence" that Iran is attempting to "commit acts of terrorism against the United States and many others. So, we are extremely cautious."
But Secretary Rubio has a different explanation. He told the media that this was a routine transfer and that it only attracted attention because of the attempted attack a few days earlier.
He said: "It is not uncommon to rotate and move around the world based on exercises, redeployments, personnel transfers, new people joining, new aircraft joining, old aircraft withdrawing, etc. So the crew is always changing."
"We are confident in the security of all our bases because theoretically all of our bases could be threatened at any time, which is why we have so many security measures around the bases," he also said.
A U.S. Department of Defense official said that all U.S. bombers deployed at Royal Air Force Base Fairford have returned home. U.S. warplanes used the base during the military operation against Iran that began in February.
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