Intelligence Scoop: The Biggest Threats to Britain, Live From MI5

What really happened at RAF Fairford? Are Russia and Iran escalating their attacks on the UK? And could AI help terrorists develop deadly bioweapons? Listen as David and Gordon dissect the key stories from MI5’s annual threat briefing and delve into the true story behind the incident at RAF Fairford. ------------------- Sign-up for our free newsletter where producer Becki takes you behind the scenes of the show: therestisclassified.com/newsletter ------------------- Join the Declassified Club to go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. Just go to ⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠ or join on Apple Podcasts. ------------------- Get a 10% discount on business PCs, printers and accessories using the code TRIC10. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://HP.com/CLASSIFIED⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more information. T&C's apply. ------------------- EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restisclassified Upgrade your online protection with an all-in-one security app! It’s risk free with NordVPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee 🌍 ------------------- Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified⁠ Social Producer: Emma Jackson Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03David McCloskey?

  For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books, join the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com.

• 0:25David McCloskey?

  Are Russia and Iran escalating their attacks on the UK? Could artificial intelligence help terrorists develop deadly bioweapons? And what really happened at RAF Fairford? Well, welcome to The Rest Is Classified. I'm David McClosky.

• 0:40Gordon Corera?

  And I'm Gordon Corera.

• 0:41David McCloskey?

  And it has been a very busy few weeks, lots of threats. And Gordon, you are quite literally just out of MI5 headquarters, which I guess begs the question, why did they let you in in the first place?

• 0:54Gordon Corera?

  There's a good question, but once a year, the head of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum, does open up MI5 headquarters at Thames House on the River in central London to a select group of journalists to give them an overview of the threats facing the UK. Does a speech on camera on the record. Some of the details of what happened inside the building are strictly off the record, although I did get special dispensation to reveal that the pastries were very, very good, a kind of Biscoff croissant. But anyway, that's probably not what people are really interested in.

• 1:25David McCloskey?

  So the MI5 director gives an on-the-record speech that is also followed by a Q and A time. And, and you, I understand, Gordon, were one of the, one of the lucky journalists who was permitted to ask a question.

• 1:38Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, that's right. And I asked him about Iranian threats to military bases in the UK. And that's obviously in the wake of this very interesting and mysterious story of what happened at RAF Fairford, an American airbase in Britain.

• 1:53David McCloskey?

  And for those who haven't followed the story, it is an absolutely kind of wild tale about a group of men who are arrested outside the base. And then a week later, 12 US B-1 bombers that had been stationed at Fairford and that had been used to conduct strikes against Iran are essentially evacuated from the base in a very major hurry.

• 2:16Gordon Corera?

  And later in the episode, David, we'll be diving deep into what we know about what really happened there and what the head of MI5 told me about the Iranian threats. But before that, we're going to look at some of the other threats that MI5 identified as facing us, including Russia. And interestingly, a lot about artificial intelligence. But first, a quick word from our sponsors at HP.

• 2:40Gordon Corera?

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• 3:47Speaker 02

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• 5:06David McCloskey?

  So Gordon, what is the view from MI5 about the threats facing the UK?

• 5:11Gordon Corera?

  So there was certainly a message about the big state threats, as MI5 puts it. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, said MI5 was devoting more resources to countering these state threats than during the Cold War. So caseload dealing with these things, which are espionage, sabotage, that kind of enemy action, that's quadrupled in the last 10 years, he said. Russia remains aggressor number one, in his words.

• 5:39Speaker 04

  Russia remains aggressor number one. As Putin's Kremlin continues to lash out at the UK and its allies. Like a number of national leaders have recently highlighted, the Russian military and intelligence services are once again escalating their attempts at hybrid warfare.

• 5:55Gordon Corera?

  Basically trying to intimidate and also weaponize division, particularly through social media and information flows.

• 6:02David McCloskey?

  It's interesting. One of the major debates in the UK has been whether or not Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum. And I believe our counterparts on the rest is politics, Rory and Alistair, actually got Prime Minister Andy Burdum to essentially admit that they did.

• 6:23Speaker 05

  I've asked the question myself coming in to this role, because I gave a speech to the UN recently on this very topic. I don't think we knew back then the extent to which there was state-sponsored interference in the British democratic process. But I asked the question coming into Downing Street, well, was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia? And I've had the clear answer that yes, there was. And then these things are important now to put clearly on the record. And I believe help voters in Germany and France understand that some of this politics is instigated via our enemies, namely Russia.

• 7:05Gordon Corera?

  And that caused a bit of a stir. And that was the subject of some of the questions to the head of MI5. When he was asked about those comments at the briefing, he said there was little doubt that Russia had tried to interfere in Brexit back in 2016, the referendum. But he was much more cautious about saying that it had an effect on the results. Now, it's interesting because one of the problems for MI5 is that it was pretty wary of getting involved in politics after that very divisive referendum and of kind of trying to unpick it or be seen to doing so. And the politicians who kind of oversaw MI5, particularly after the referendum,

• 7:45Gordon Corera?

  also didn't really want that subject unpicked with people looking at Russian interference. So there wasn't much focus on it. And obviously, we now have a prime minister who is more focused on getting into a different relationship with Europe and is willing to talk about it in a different way. So it was quite interesting and it was quite difficult, I think, for the head of MI5 to talk about this very divisive political subject. And one of the things he said was, well, look, Russia does try and do this, but we also have to not let them get into our heads and make them out to be more successful and more effective at influencing our politics than they actually are.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  The whole aim of hybrid tactics is to try to intimidate us. So let's not fall into that trap.

• 8:28Gordon Corera?

  And we need to be kind of resilient to that risk and that danger of Russia trying to divide us.

• 8:34David McCloskey?

  He probably pointed to the American example of how effectively we dealt with this during the 2016 election, right?

• 8:39Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, no fallout, no legacy.

• 8:41David McCloskey?

  Keep Russia out of our heads, you know, and, and really just a perfect example of how the intelligence services managed to walk that fine line. I mean, it is, I mean, it all, in all seriousness, though, it is a very interesting parallel to the 2016 case, which we, I mean, we did that series on the pod earlier this year on, on Russian interference in that election, the nature of it, and how it quickly became politicized. So, I mean, I guess it does make sense that Sir Ken would be quite reluctant to dip his toes into that, into that, that pretty nasty pod.

• 9:15Gordon Corera?

  The morass.

• 9:16David McCloskey?

  Yeah.

• 9:17Gordon Corera?

  So, so, yeah, he talked about Russia. Interestingly enough, we'll come back to Iran later. He talked about, even with all these state threats, Chinese espionage as well, still worry about terrorism, especially, I think, political violence, violence against politicians, also growing extreme right-wing terrorism. I mean, at one point, he said that MI5 was investigating a radicalized, extreme right-wing 13-year-old in the UK. So I think that remains a focus despite this kind of growth of the, the state threats.

• 9:46David McCloskey?

  And he also spent a lot of time talking about artificial intelligence, AI.

• 9:51Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. And I thought that was really interesting because it's been there in speeches in the past, but never quite with the prominence it had at this briefing. And it was talked about in more specific ways rather than a general threat. For instance, the risk that it's turbocharging cyber threats, making it easier to hack into systems. There's the risk it can produce propaganda and radicalizing material tailored specifically to individuals. He also said that they'd seen terrorists seeking to exploit AI to improve reconnaissance and attack methodologies. And even with AI-enabled drones adding a new twist. So I think you've got a sense there about some of the ways in which AI is being used

• 10:35Gordon Corera?

  to, to change the, the way terrorists can carry out acts. But I thought it was interesting that he said that their biggest worry was artificial intelligence being used to create bioweapons.

• 10:46Speaker 04

  Not yet realized, but the misuse case to which I'd attach greatest weight is AI's potential to change the stakes on existing or even new bioweapons. These risks are real.

• 10:58Gordon Corera?

  So for a long time, they've known that terrorist groups post nine eleven have wanted to get hold of chemical, biological weapons, things like that. But it's been pretty hard to get hold of them or to make them without a lab. And the fear is that AI could make it easier to either obtain the know how of how to make them, or even that AI at the next level could be used to engineer new viruses and pathogens. Think about a kind of COVID virus made even more deadly. And he said, that is a worry, although he was careful to say, we're not there yet.

• 11:29David McCloskey?

  Well, that's good. Phew. Phew. Did he talk about killer robots?

• 11:35Gordon Corera?

  He did not specifically talk about killer robots. He did not use that phrase, although he did raise this kind of bigger question, the existential question about whether artificial general intelligence or super intelligence, I think that's what we're now supposed to call it, which is smarter than us, could outthink us. And he said, it's interesting. He said, this is genuinely novel and deserves the serious attention it's getting, including in MI5, to that kind of threat of the AI taking over.

• 12:03David McCloskey?

  So I guess it means that MI5 researchers are going to spend a lot of time reading, what horrific sort of sci fi novels, things like that. I mean, what?

• 12:12Gordon Corera?

  Nothing wrong with sci fi novels.

• 12:14David McCloskey?

  No, there's nothing wrong with sci fi novels. But did you get a sense of what that actually means inside MI5? Like, what are they actually doing?

• 12:22Gordon Corera?

  Well, it was interesting because he was quite specific about that. He said they've created a new AI threat assessment centre. So they've had a terrorism analysis centre for some time, a state threats centre for some time. And the new thing, I think, is this AI assessment centre, where they're going to bring together all the experts. And the idea is that they're going to be able to kind of provide an objective assessment of how serious that threat was. So I think what you get a sense from him and talking about AI is that the pace at which some of these threats are changing and growing is worrying to him. And I think that was definitely one sense you got. But there was one threat, which I did ask him about, which was this threat from Iran, including to US military

• 13:07Gordon Corera?

  bases in the UK, which relates to this pretty wild story about Fairfield. So after the break, let's look deeper into what might have been going on there.

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• 13:52David McCloskey?

  Well, welcome back. We're not focusing on extinction level threats and killer robots. So let's go to Iran instead, Gordon, and what it's up to, including targeting US bases in the UK.

• 14:07Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, it was interesting. So amidst these state threats, the head of MI5 said specifically when it came to Iran, there'd been more than 50 arrests linked to Iranian activity in the UK in the last year, things like targeting Iranian dissidents, Jewish communities in the UK, violence, arson, these kind of activities, which we've known about for some time, to be fair. But the shift that he specifically mentioned was Iran's ambitions to strike harder targets, including military targets.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  The other major shift this year has been Iranian ambitions to come at harder targets like military sites.

• 14:43Gordon Corera?

  And I think that brings us to this story of RAF Fairfield, doesn't it?

• 14:46David McCloskey?

  Yeah, it does. And that is a, it's a US airbase in, do I have the pronunciation right here, Gordon? Gloucestershire. Is that?

• 14:54Gordon Corera?

  Gloucestershire. The Cotswolds.

• 14:57David McCloskey?

  The Cotswolds. Yes. Vacation choice of none other than JD Vance. And it is a, it's a US airbase that dates back to the Second World War. Believe it was, it was created in 1944 in advance of D-Day, as home for gliders launched into, into France on D-Day. So it is, it is a very old US base in England. So just to kind of go back, I think, because the story itself of what actually happened there is quite, is quite fascinating. So what, walk us back, Gordon, to how this, how this all started.

• 15:32Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. So it starts on the early hours of Sunday, September the 27th. And we wake up that Sunday morning with police having declared a major incident just outside the base. They have evacuated 85 houses. Three white vans have been stopped, five people have been arrested, and the bomb disposal teams are searching those vans. So it suddenly looks like this is, if you like, a major plot. That's what everyone thinks. But then the mysteries and oddities start to this. And pretty quickly, it becomes murkier. So for instance, how did the police get on to these people? So a local farmer talks to the media the next day, and she's remained anonymous, but she says she's returning home

• 16:16Gordon Corera?

  from a party in the early hours of Sunday morning, which I thought farmers have to get up early in the morning to do the farming stuff. I don't know much about farming.

• 16:24David McCloskey?

  Yeah. Are farmers partying in the Cotswolds until?

• 16:27Gordon Corera?

  Clearly.

• 16:28David McCloskey?

  The wee hours?

• 16:29Gordon Corera?

  After midnight. Yeah. It's, it's anyway, but it's no, we shouldn't object to people going out. It's fine. But she comes back, early hours of the Sunday morning. She sees a driveway blocked. And she says she sees eight to 10 people in masks running. And she tries to call the Ministry of Defence Police, who look after the base, no answer. And then at 1:36 AM on this Sunday morning, she calls the police on 999, the emergency number. And she will say she thinks she foiled the attack, and she was the one who tipped off the police to what was happening to these men who were arrested. But then it starts again to get a bit more complicated, because that doesn't quite fit with the timeline of the police statement, which then comes out. Because they say they'd been called

• 17:11Gordon Corera?

  before that at 12:45 AM. And then it turns out eventually that they were called by one of the five men inside the vans, which is kind of weird. And we might come back to what's going on there. But that already kind of makes you go, this is odd. And it looks like the farmer, she's actually possibly seen the undercover police who'd arrived in the area, who were kind of masked and on the move and trying to deal with whatever situation was ongoing, rather than necessarily the men who'd been arrested. It's not entirely clear. Then the next thing that's weird happens is that the following day, the men are released on bail, but still under investigation. And now that's really unusual if they posed

• 17:55Gordon Corera?

  a major threat. Two more people since then have also been arrested. But it becomes pretty clear that no explosives have been found. There were no bombs in the vans, just some cans of petrol. So everyone goes, well, what was all that about? Maybe not so much of a threat.

• 18:11David McCloskey?

  I mean, when this story broke, we were actually messaging each other, you know, to try to figure out if we would, if we would cover the story on, on the day up. It just kept getting weirder and weirder. And it was like the layers to the story kept piling up. And so you couldn't quite get to the bottom of it. We also had, I mean, to add one more layer, there were those strange comments that Donald Trump made on the day of the arrests, where he basically said, you know, that we'd been watching these guys for a while. I think he did this from, from a runway somewhere as he's getting off Air Force One, and that the Brits had done an amazing job. So it suggested strangely that there was some measure of foreknowledge, that there was an attack in the works, or

• 18:55David McCloskey?

  that there had been a plot. And so that causes even more confusion.

• 18:59Gordon Corera?

  Because it didn't quite fit with the idea that the men had only been arrested when there'd been a call into the emergency services, into the police, and that had tipped them off. And in this case, it turns out by the men, one of the men himself. So that didn't kind of fit with the Trump comments. Now, it was, it was fair to say the immediate suspicion was Iran, or that Iran might have been involved. That was all the speculation, because it is a base that since March has been used for American bombers to go off and carry out attacks on Iran. I mean, Britain initially resisted allowing bases to be used to attack Iran. And it then turned into allowing bases to be used for what are called defensive strikes.

• 19:41David McCloskey?

  Defensive bombing runs.

• 19:43Gordon Corera?

  Defensive bombing, which I think most people would think is a slightly oddly legalistic term that was used by the British government to get around the fact that they really annoyed President Trump by saying they can't use the bases for offensive missions.

• 19:58David McCloskey?

  Wasn't the idea that the strikes from British soil would be against? Missile and drone production facilities.

• 20:05Gordon Corera?

  There was a logic to it.

• 20:06David McCloskey?

  Yeah, there was some legalistic division of kind of the targets the US could strike from, from British soil and what was considered an offensive bombing run. I also like that, I mean, so after this happens, the Iranians, of course, start threatening the UK and say that, you know, bases on British soil that are being used in these bombing runs are legitimate targets. They make veiled threats against, I like this term, the British monarchy regime. What American couldn't oppose, you know, resistance to the British monarchy regime? It's in our blood. But, but the threats, I mean, we should say the threats are very vague, they're nonspecific. It's just kind of this general threat against the UK in response to, to the UK letting

• 20:51David McCloskey?

  the US conduct strikes from, from British soil.

• 20:54Gordon Corera?

  And so we're in this kind of messy period, a couple of days after the arrests, where the men have been released, it's not really clear what's happening. And then a week after, something really surprising happens, doesn't it? Because the US then pulls out these bombers.

• 21:09David McCloskey?

  And it pulls them out very quickly, to the point where I believe some of the planes and flight crews actually left while there were like aerial refueling aircraft still being deployed to support their flights. So they, they fly these 12 B1 bombers back, I believe, to South Dakota to just, I mean, get them entirely out of the UK and out of Europe. And then there's, then there's additional confusion because Vice President JD Vance implies publicly that the bombers are withdrawn due to a threat, which would make sense, given how quickly they're, they're evacuated. But then Marco Rubio says, oh, well, this is kind of a, a routine reallocation of, of resources.

• 21:53David McCloskey?

  And it, it is true that there are these kind of bomber deployments that move around quite frequently. I mean, the Air Force will send small groups of bombers to allied air bases for a few weeks at a time. They're called bomber task force deployments. So there is a kind of, if you put aside the, the weirdness of all the guys being arrested, you know, outside of the base of the vans, there's on the face of it, some logic, I think, to Rubio's statements. But again, we have the, we have the arrests at the vans, we have Donald Trump's weird statements about how we've been watching these guys for a while. So I mean, it raises this question, I think, of, you know, what was the plot?

• 22:36David McCloskey?

  And was the plot, which I think it, it was, was the plot connected to the very speedy evacuation of these bombers from the base?

• 22:44Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, I mean, it becomes clear that security had been raised at the base in the run up to the arrests of the guy in the van. So people seem to have known that something was up. You know, local people had talked about seeing increased signs of security. So all of that suggests that there was intelligence about a plot to strike the base in some ways. The report suggests that maybe mid-September, this intelligence comes in, possibly from Israel, of a plan to strike US bases, including Fairfield, although also maybe some in Germany, including Ramstein, one of the big bases. And it, it looks like there's no concrete details of what this might be.

• 23:27Gordon Corera?

  Now, I don't know what you think, but my guess is that this is perhaps intercepts or agent reporting from inside Iran, where there, where there's some kind of chatter going, you know, let's hit these, let's hit US bases in Europe, let's, let's try and strike them. But, but it's pretty nonspecific. And that is leading in the run up to the arrest, to that increased security and the general kind of atmosphere of something's going on. And perhaps even explains Donald Trump's comments that, you know, we've been watching them for, watching something of concern for a while. But it, it's, it's hard then to understand what leads to the, the sudden withdrawal then afterwards, isn't it? And how specific it was.

• 24:07David McCloskey?

  You could just explain the withdrawal by the fact that these B1s, I mean, each of them, so there are only 100 B1 bombers that, that were built between, I think, the late 80s and the mid to late 90s. The cost of each of those aircraft in $1998, which is the source that the US Air Force cites for the cost, is $283 million, which today is somewhere between 500 and 550 million. So these are half billion dollar aircraft. There's only 100. If, if you have 12 of them there, you're talking about over $5 billion of equipment.

• 24:48Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 24:48David McCloskey?

  And even, even if you have a nonspecific threat, it probably makes sense to just remove them. The ability to defend the base is actually pretty limited. In some ways, it does make sense that you could have nonspecific threat reporting. If you think it's credible, you know, it makes sense to remove the bombers quickly because the, you know, you're talking about potentially hundreds of billions or billions of dollars of damage if there actually is an attack. And I think in one theory that has emerged is that there was a kind of complicated Iranian plot underfoot to strike the aircraft, to kill American personnel on the base, and

• 25:33David McCloskey?

  that maybe it was going to look like Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb, which was this amazing, you know, Ukrainian attack in June of 2025, where they had more than 100 drones that are smuggled in trucks into Russia and had launched near a Russian base to destroy their long range bombers. So if that's a template, I think the withdrawal makes sense. I mean, what do you think?

• 25:56Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, no, I mean, if, if that's what you're worried about, that is something that would be very serious. I mean, that Ukrainian operation destroyed or damaged about a dozen aircraft on the runway, including some of Russia's very advanced bombers, of which they don't have very many, and which they thought were a long way away from Ukraine and therefore safe, and that they weren't. So I think that seems to have been some of the reporting, or that possibility. I mean, it's interesting because since then, there is still some more information. I mean, on Monday of this week, Britain's Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, said it was highly likely that whatever happened was coordinated in Iran, directed by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

• 26:35Gordon Corera?

  He also suggested that the UK would crack down on the use of criminal networks as proxies. And we've seen this use of criminal networks and proxies, but in the past to carry out arson attacks. So for instance, we've seen attacks on Jewish ambulances in London, but those were people basically being paid to do it. We also had an interesting incident where a proxy group claimed that the Israeli embassy in London would be attacked by drones carrying dangerous substances. Now, they actually found some jars of powder nearby, but it turns out they weren't actually hazardous. So you suddenly also get a picture there of, well, if the, if the model so far has been using criminal proxies, that is not necessarily that advanced.

• 27:20Gordon Corera?

  And where you have a, a threat even against the Israeli embassy, it turns out to be almost more of a stunt than, than a real threat. So you, you then have this kind of slight mismatch, I think, between this really advanced talk of a plot like Spider's Web with, you know, drones, explosive drones coming out of lorries and being able to blow up aircraft, and the kind of five guys who've been arrested, but we should say haven't been charged anyway, who look more like low level criminals or, you know, one of the things is you end up with this dissonance. So, you know, were they a distraction, a test of security? Did they not know what they were doing? And is that why one of them then calls the police during the raid? Or was it part of something bigger? Or was it a stunt? I mean, or was it nothing?

• 28:05Gordon Corera?

  I mean, it's very, very hard to say, isn't it?

• 28:07David McCloskey?

  What's your, what's your view? I mean, how do you marry up this? Because you kind of have, you have these bizarre facts of, you have a phone call from one of these guys from inside the van, you have the arrest, you have the fact that they don't have explosives in the van, they don't have drones in the van, and then you have their release a day later. I mean, it, so it, it feels like if there was intelligence implicating these guys directly in an Iranian plot, that they wouldn't have been released, right? So I mean, how, like, how do you, how do you square this information?

• 28:44Gordon Corera?

  Well, unless, unless they were unwitting or not realizing what they were doing, or thought they were doing something much more low level, or like a stunt, maybe making a, a small fire, but it certainly is no.

• 28:57David McCloskey?

  That wouldn't be enough to hold them in a, in a UK context.

• 29:01Gordon Corera?

  If you imagine hypothetically, you've got a bunch of guys driving around with petrol in their van near a US base. I mean, in itself, that's not criminal unless you can prove intent to do something.

• 29:11David McCloskey?

  Sure.

• 29:11Gordon Corera?

  I think that's one of the problems. If you have explosives, if someone have explosives, it's much easier to kind of charge and detain them. But some petrol in a can, you know, what, what's that? So I think, you know, there is a limit to what we can say, and the police investigation is underway, there might be further updates on it. So I think we have to kind of slightly to put one side, those men and what they were doing, and ask more seriously, what else might have been going on? You know, was there some other intelligence of a potential plot?

• 29:38David McCloskey?

  And I guess it would be plausible, and again, this is speculation, that as soon as one of these guys realized where they were and the, you know, they're, they're outside a, you know, a US airbase, maybe he, maybe he was unwitting of, of who ultimately had tasked them to do something or to drive around, and then he realizes where they are and decides to, to essentially rat himself and the group out because he doesn't want it to go any further. But again, I mean, that's, that's speculation. I mean, you, you put the question though to Sir Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, right? To be, what, what did he say?

• 30:15Gordon Corera?

  Understanding that he can't comment that much about Fairfield specifically, because that's under police investigation. My question to him was, does Iran have the capability to launch a complex drone attack like the Operation Spider's Web won by Ukraine, using those kind of, you know, explosive drones? Because that would be different from using disposable agents, criminals for hire, the kind of thing we've seen Iran do in the past. And his, his answer was interesting, because I could see him being careful in his choice of words. He said Iran was principally using hired criminals to do their bidding. And the reality was that the level of capability then to carry out a really sophisticated drone

• 30:58Gordon Corera?

  attack like Spider's Web would not be possible with that group. Now, he said that if you look in the Middle East, Iran's Revolutionary Guards have shown more capability of mounting complex attacks, which are more dangerous, more sophisticated. So he said he'd be foolish to be in his position and say they could never do it in the UK. But it certainly felt like he was saying he hadn't seen that kind of capability of launching that kind of sophisticated drone attack in the UK so far. So in other words, something you you might worry about, but not that they'd seen evidence of a really, really high end capability by Iran to do that kind of thing. And I thought I thought that was interesting because to me it tells you that maybe there's

• 31:43Gordon Corera?

  there's talk in Iran, which is being picked up by intelligence agencies, maybe Israel, maybe the Americans saying, we want to attack UK bases, we want to do a big attack, let's plan something big. But by the time you get to what's actually happening in the UK, you've got either nothing or you've got five guys in a van with some petrol doing something much smaller, which isn't to say there couldn't be plans for something bigger as well. But it's a murky picture, I think, isn't it?

• 32:09David McCloskey?

  I guess it could be factually true that MI5 doesn't yet see the capability to do this at the UK. And yet, at the same time, I think about the Spider Web example where my understanding is that the the truck drivers in that case didn't actually know what was in the trucks. And that those drones were flown, I believe, via some sort of satellite uplink from Ukraine. If I'm not mistaken, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong there, but it does suggest that. And I believe the Russians, obviously, given the fact that that attack by the Ukrainians was successful. The Russians obviously underestimated Ukraine's capabilities.

• 32:50David McCloskey?

  I mean, we're talking about, I believe, the base that was struck in that case was was well east of Moscow, right?

• 32:57Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, it's really remote.

• 32:59David McCloskey?

  It's like you can have this case where the Internal Security Service, MI5, says, well, we don't see this capability yet. And and yet the the sort of the things that you need to kind of pull an attack like this off. It's not a particularly high bar. I mean, the the counterpoint here is I think that the Western and in particular Israeli signals intelligence coverage of Iran and the IRGC is extremely potent. And it's probably much harder for the Iranians to pull something like this off without Western intelligence or the Israelis actually seeing it.

• 33:37Gordon Corera?

  No, which appears to be what they did. I mean, I do think it would probably be harder to get the explosives and the drones into the UK if you were the Iranians.

• 33:47David McCloskey?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 33:48Gordon Corera?

  Than it was for the Ukrainians to get it into Russia over a land border. So I still think it's harder, but I guess what MI5 are saying is we can't not worry about this. But it's not what we've seen so far. But what I think so interesting about this as a case is no one's been charged yet. So those men might be entirely innocent. So, you know, put that aside, you've still got the fact that a dozen US bombers have left their base and it looks like they've been forced to do so by an Iranian threat. I mean, it feels to me that is almost the most significant thing is the fact it's had an effect by even the possibility of of this threat.

• 34:30Gordon Corera?

  And as you were saying before, it's partly the fact that we're learning, aren't we? That that bases, US military bases in the Middle East, but also maybe in the UK are not as safe as people thought they were.

• 34:44David McCloskey?

  Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean, in many ways, it's an Iranian win, even if they did nothing, right? Even if there there wasn't, I guess, a credible or active plot with a whole bunch of disposable agents and, you know, trucks and drones and explosives that are already in the UK. I mean, the B1s are back in South Dakota. It makes us look weak. It creates a bit of a strain on US UK relations because in some ways it the the withdrawal suggests that we don't trust you to defend the base. And I don't think this will have a particularly strategic implication on the conflict.

• 35:28David McCloskey?

  But it also means that the logistical pipeline for those bombers to then, at least in the near term, for those bombers to actually reach Iran is much longer, right? It's a more complicated thing now to to actually conduct any runs, you know, with those with those B1s. So you're right, I mean, in many ways, you know, this is this is an Iranian win without firing a shot. I mean, I think it also, one of the major implications of it, you know, and to this point, we could talk extensively about what's been going on at the Middle East since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury, is it does highlight this kind of ongoing and persistent threat to US bases, doesn't it? Because this is this is not just a UK story.

• 36:11David McCloskey?

  I mean, this is this is almost an example in the UK of what we've already seen over the last eight months in the Middle East, isn't it?

• 36:19Gordon Corera?

  Iran, since the start of this conflict, deliberately target US bases across the Middle East. I mean, multiple bases. And one of the interesting things is, I mean, we actually don't have that many details of what's been hit because the US Department of Defense slash War has been pretty sparse with its details and so, of course, have been the hosting countries. But we do know a lot of them have been hit. I mean, mainly not by drones, or the drones in some cases, often by ballistic missiles, but very specifically targeting US bases to effectively drive the US out of those bases. And quite a few, we think, have been rendered inoperable effectively, haven't they?

• 36:58David McCloskey?

  Famously, we had the drone strike against the US Embassy at Riyadh, right? Which actually hit the CIA station there, although I think it's still unclear if the Iranians were actually targeting the floor of the embassy that had the station or if they if they just got lucky. I mean, 18, I believe, US service people have been killed by Iranian drones and ballistic missiles. The very significant number of, you know, civilian and and military casualties. And, you know, I mean, it's it's interesting because going to your point on the Department of Defense slash War's kind of unwillingness to to share details of this because obviously it's not a good look for us.

• 37:39David McCloskey?

  The there was an estimate done, I mean, this is this is now a dated estimate from the spring. But there was an estimate done by the American Enterprise Institute that's that estimated that the cost of repairing damage to 11 bases or installations that had been hit in the region across, I think, seven countries was about $5 billion. And some of these are so badly damaged that it probably doesn't make sense to actually rebuild them. And so in some ways, Fairfield is this kind of example of the Iranians kind of pushing the US footprint away from Iran throughout the conflict. I think, you know, an example of this earlier in the conflict was the the sort of push of the logistical chain eastward to Diego Garcia, right?

• 38:22Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 38:23David McCloskey?

  Out of the region. And Fairfield is this kind of interesting example on the Western flank where an Iranian threat pushes the US, at least temporarily, out of a base in the UK and moves the bombers westward into the continental United States. So you there's this kind of this story that has been percolating throughout the conflict, but but rarely makes headlines that the US footprint in the region, which, I mean, if you look at a map of the region and how many bases and installations we have, it's probably more than any American would actually suspect. But many of these have been significantly damaged and we've had to sort of push the footprint out and away from Iran in response to the fact that we can't stop these drones and ballistic missile strikes.

• 39:04Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, and it's interesting, isn't it? Because it also raises a question for countries hosting US bases, particularly under the Trump administration. Does hosting US base bring you security? Or does it bring you risk because you're going to be targeted because of that? And I think that is a kind of different equation for Gulf states, the one that they not had to think about in the past. And I mean, would be very complicated for the UK. So it is clear, you know, this is a Iranian strategy to target these bases. I guess what's also interesting, when you kind of look at Fairfield particularly and and the the potential threat, as we say, we don't know exactly what it looked like. It is hard to stop these drone, these drones, aren't they? I mean, you're looking at a base with a big perimeter within a civilian area where people can move and drive around.

• 39:48Gordon Corera?

  It is quite hard in the new world of drones to be able to kind of defend against the the use of drones in that context, you know, it's different from the ballistic missiles and Iran might be sending. But even even in Fairfield, it's hard in the UK.

• 40:02David McCloskey?

  Yeah, I think in Fairfield, I mean, if you don't have intelligence on the individual humans who are involved in the plot, or you don't have the plate numbers for the trucks that they might be using, you don't have an address, it seems like we have none of this at this point. If you think about what you have to do to defend an installation from, we're not talking about a drone or ballistic missile that's going to be fired from outside the UK in this case. We're talking about a drone, a small, probably commercially available drone, that could be launched from somewhere around Fairfield, laden with explosives,

• 40:44David McCloskey?

  hit a B1 and do significant damage. The circle you have to draw around the base and the area you have to cover from a policing or internal security perspective is really large. And I think that's probably why you saw the evacuation of the bombers, because there actually isn't a way for the UK to guarantee their security.

• 41:06Gordon Corera?

  So I think the best example of that is the Leipzig attack, which we talked about a few weeks ago, where you had a small, effectively a commercial drone, quadcopter drone, with some explosive attached to it, which flew into, in that case, a cargo plane and didn't explode. But it was being locally controlled. It wasn't particularly high tech, didn't require a lot of people, required two people, it sounds like, were involved in that plot, which is a Russian plot. But you imagine trying to defend against that at a big base like Fairfield, where you've got these very expensive bombers. I mean, that is hard. I mean, it is really, really hard to defend against. And it is a kind of new threat, isn't it? It's a new worry about the vulnerability of these bases to that kind of specific threat.

• 41:48David McCloskey?

  Yeah, and it's going to be an ongoing problem because the offense is much cheaper than the defense. You know, it's not a one-to-one comparison, but when you look at how expensive it has been for Gulf countries to try to defend themselves against Iranian drone and ballistic missile strikes. I mean, it's absurd. You know, I mean, there are estimates to suggest that the UAE, for example, spent at least $10 shooting down drones for every $1 Iran spent on them. And I think the same economics apply even in a slightly different case inside the UK, where if you're using networks of disposable agents, if you're using cheap drones, if you're using explosives that are smuggled in and are not particularly

• 42:28David McCloskey?

  complex, the offense is much cheaper than the defense. And you only have to, the defense has to be perfect.

• 42:35Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 42:36David McCloskey?

  The offense just has to get through once or twice to create, you know, a massive geopolitical incident, or to destroy a bunch of, you know, very expensive military hardware, or to kill people. And it also makes me think, I mean, there's this bigger implication about the security of US bases, not just in the region, but in the UK. And it makes me think also, if you tie it back to MI5 Director's remarks of what does this drone threat look like when you pair it up with artificial intelligence? One of the major threats that Ken McCallum is talking about in the remarks you heard this morning.

• 43:16Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, that's right. Because, I mean, one of the things we've seen already in the Ukraine-Russia conflict is that they are using artificial intelligence to basically allow the drones to fly semi-autonomously. So you might have, you know, electronic warfare jamming to try and jam the radio frequencies or stop a drone hitting a target. And that's one of the ways that they try and protect places. But with AI, you can basically leave it to fly more autonomously and find its way or find the right target. You've got a quite scary future. It's not quite killer robots, but it is kind of AI-controlled drone swarms launched from somewhere, maybe a large number of drones.

• 43:49David McCloskey?

  That sounds like killer robots. That sounds like more words to describe killer robots, Gordon.

• 43:54Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, it's not quite Terminator, but it's kind of close. This has the potential to change military basing strategy, do you think? I mean, to be significant. Is that what we're seeing now to start off?

• 44:05David McCloskey?

  I mean, I think so. And again, I think the Petri dish for all of this is Ukraine, where you've seen, you know, the Ukrainians kind of moving to a strategy where they've got more dispersed bases, hardened bases, bunkers, smaller installations, right? It's having these kind of large, vulnerable bases is looking increasingly antiquated, I think. You know, and when you, you know, to kind of, I guess, peel out a bit of what the actual AI plus drones threat is, I mean, it raises the prospect that, you know, to your point, you have more drones attacking all at once because they're autonomous or semi-autonomous.

• 44:47David McCloskey?

  There was a very interesting demonstration done in China earlier this year, where they actually televised a soldier who's actually supervising, I think, more than a couple hundred autonomous drones, right? So you don't have, it's not one person flying one drone, it's one person more or less in control or sort of directing hundreds of these things. So you have more drones. If they're sort of AI-powered and thinking about the right attack vector, how you swarm effectively a target, you have more effective attacks, right, on that target, a base or whatever it might be. And it means that people can't keep up. How do you defend against that using, you know, even the existing technology that

• 45:30David McCloskey?

  we have on, and put aside the kind of surface-to-air interceptors, but, you know, the Ukrainians are using drone interceptors. I mean, how do you keep up with this? And the drones to that cost point, it's like a drone swarm is not, they're not using drones that cost millions of dollars, they're using drones that cost hundreds of dollars. So we're sort of looking into this world. And I think Fairfield's a good example of why you get the B1s out so quickly is because if you're facing the prospect of many drones coming from somewhere you didn't anticipate, your ability to sort of defend against it from a cost standpoint, to defend against it from a saturation standpoint, to jam the radio frequencies of those drones

• 46:12David McCloskey?

  all sort of, you know, gets called into question. And we're like, not quite there yet, but that's where we're headed, which is, you know, I think quite frightening.

• 46:22Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, I think it is pretty frightening. And, you know, we don't know exactly what was planned at Fairfield. We don't know exactly what the intelligence was and how firm it was and how clear it was about a plot. But the fact there was even the possibility of something which was enough to drive those bombers out, I think, you know, tells you a lot about this new world of drones, of AI and of threats, you know, that Ken McCallum was talking about. So I think that is a pretty interesting case study, really, Fairfield, of this, you know, the new world of transnational threats that we're facing and of how states can, you know, even when Iran is on the back foot, it can still find new ways of using

• 47:03Gordon Corera?

  technology to project risk, you know, even to Gloucestershire. So I think that's a good place to leave it, David, in Gloucestershire. Listen out next week, next Monday, for the penultimate episode of our series on Kim Philby. He's reaching his end, isn't he, David?

• 47:22David McCloskey?

  Killer robots, you know, makes Kim Philby look like sort of a, you know, a very quaint sort of threat, doesn't it, Gordon?

• 47:28Gordon Corera?

  It does. Those were the days. We've also got the series coming up soon, which is going to be terrific on the CIA and Watergate. And don't forget, if you're a club member, you can hear some great bonus material related to Kim Philby, including a very interesting interview with Paul Greengrass, the film director of The Bourne Films, talking about mole hunts and the legacy of Philby. So do sign up for the club at therestisclassified.com for that. But otherwise, we'll be back with more news as and when it happens, and we'll see you next time.

• 47:54David McCloskey?

  We'll see you next time.

• 48:02Speaker 07

  Hello, Goalhanger History listeners. This is Marina Hyde and Richard Osman from The Rest is Entertainment.

• 48:07David McCloskey?

  Hello, everybody. Every Thursday and Friday, we are reacting to the pop culture phenomenon that is The Celebrity Traitors. We'll be on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. And Marina and I are digging into all the castle's twists and turns, giving our expert opinion on what should happen next.

• 48:22Speaker 07

  Now, which historical figure do we think would be the greatest traitor?

• 48:26David McCloskey?

  It's tempting to think of an actual traitor.

• 48:28Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 48:29David McCloskey?

  A Guy Fawkes or a Kim Philby. But then, all of those are traitors who got caught.

• 48:33Speaker 07

  Philby had a great run, though.

• 48:35David McCloskey?

  He did have a great run.

• 48:36Speaker 07

  I think he could probably see off, you know, Joanne.

• 48:38David McCloskey?

  Yes, maybe. And probably sort of where he ended up in Moscow is probably roughly like where the contestants have to spend every night as well. So maybe there's some sort of equivalence. So if you're watching Celebrity Traitors, don't forget to tune into our reaction episodes every Thursday and Friday night at 10 PM.

• 48:54Speaker 07

  Find us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.