Britain Arrests Five Men in Iran-Linked Air Base Plot

British authorities arrested five men in a suspected plot to attack a military air base that Iran had previously designated as a legitimate target. Prime Minister Andy Burnham stated there are "strong indications that Iran played a part" in the operation.

In a separate action on Friday, British counterterrorism police charged two Iranian men for a plot involving homemade explosives targeting Jewish people in the Manchester area. These incidents are part of a broader pattern of approximately 20 small-scale bombing and arson attacks against American and Jewish targets across North America and Europe since February.

Experts describe these operations as a gig economy hybrid model of warfare. Under this strategy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps uses cryptocurrency and anonymous online platforms to hire disenfranchised youth or local criminals to carry out attacks, allowing the Iranian state to maintain deniability. A previous wave of such attacks ended in May following the United States' extradition of Mohammad Baqer al-Saadi, a high-ranking member of the Iranian proxy force Kataib Hezbollah, from Turkey.