US military aircraft leave second UK base, report says

Several US military aircraft have left a second airbase in Britain on Monday, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). This comes weeks after the US withdrew its bombers from RAF Fairford airbase over a suspected Iran-linked security incident. An MoD spokesperson told the BBC: "We do not routinely comment on the activity of other nations.

Aircraft and other assets move regularly ​according to operational ​requirements." Former UK National Security Adviser Lord Ricketts told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We are talking about an airbase which houses these large tanker aircraft. Of course, they are large targets, an airbase has a long perimeter, so they are inevitably vulnerable." The movements reported at RAF Mildenhall follow a security incident at RAF Fairford, a US-operated airbase in Gloucestershire. A major incident was declared after three suspicious vans were seen near that base in September.

It later emerged that the US had pulled its bombers out of the base and returned them to America.