A major incident was declared over the weekend after a potential terrorist plot against RAF Fairford was flagged by a local farmer who noticed three suspicious vans close to the military base near the Cotswolds.

Five men have been arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act in connection with the event.

The air base is used by the US military to conduct air strikes on Iran as part of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and is therefore considered a likely motive behind the attacks, although the police have not ruled anything out and are also investigating the possibility of a Russian sabotage link.

Iran has made no secret of the fact that it considers US and Israeli allies a “legitimate target” of self-defence and called Britain an “accomplice”.

Last week, foreign minister Ed Miliband told his Iranian counterpart Abbas Aragchi that Britain will “not tolerate intimidation, threats or hostile activity on UK soil” from groups connected to Iran during a face-to-face meeting on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York.

While the recent incident marks an escalation in potential violence by Iran against the West if it is found to be behind it, the country has been launching clandestine schemes against countries across the world for decades.

Below we look at the main ways it targets its opponents.

Attacks on neighbouring countries

Since US-Israeli attacks started the war against Iran on 28 February, Tehran has launched a series of retaliatory strikes on its neighbours.

Drones and missiles have struck oil and energy infrastructure and US military bases in the region as well as civilian targets such as airports and hotels.

Countries affected include Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, and even Iran’s mediation partner, Oman. A dozen countries have been affected including European nations such as Cyprus when British base RAF Akrotiri was hit by a suspected Iranian drone amid hostilities.

Iran-backed plots to kill opponents

In a report released by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee in July 2025, the body concluded that Iran poses a “wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat” but caveated that the risk is less developed and strategic in comparison to Russia and China.

It identified the greatest risk as “physical threat[s] posed to dissidents and other opponents”. In October 2025, the director general of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum reported that security agencies had tracked “more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots” in the previous year.

The threats are so wide-ranging and extensive that the Washington Institute has an interactive map documenting over 45 years of Iranian clandestine operations around the globe.

It notes that Iran has “targeted Iranian dissidents and journalists, diplomats from countries opposed to Iranian policies, as well as Israelis and Jews in assassination plots, attempted abductions, intimidation campaigns, and surveillance operations”.

In July this year, two men were jailed for stabbing a journalist in south London in 2024 that was assessed to having been “carried out on behalf of or for the benefit of the Iranian regime”, according to the Met Police.

Trump assassination attempts

Last month it emerged that Trump had been smuggled out of Air Force One in a catering truck to escape an Iranian assassination attempt when he visited the Nato summit in Ankara.

But it was not the first time that Iranian-backed groups or individuals have been linked to an attempt to attack the US leader.

In 2024, an Afghan national and Iranian government operative was accused of hiring two New Yorkers to carry out an assassination plot against a critic of the Iranian regime. He admitted to FBI agents that he’d also been recruited to find a squad to kill the then president-elect Trump.

During Trump’s presidential campaign, Asif Merchant, a Pakistani business owner admitted he had attempted to hire hitmen to assassinate the leader. But American investigators disrupted the plot before it could succeed.

Hybrid attacks

Hybrid attacks are an increasingly new and complex frontier in modern-day warfare. The strategy involves simultaneous attacks using multiple means to cause maximum disruption and interrupt a unified response.

In March, a pro-Iranian group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al Islamiya (HAYI) claimed responsibility for a number of such attacks across Europe. Suspicions were immediately raised about the legitimacy of the group as so little was known about it.

The decentralised network of perpetrators claimed at least seven attacks in a period of seven weeks against Jewish communities, Israeli diplomatic missions, financial institutions and Iranian dissident journalists across Europe. It emerged as a force around 10 days into the war with Iran.

Four ambulances, as part of the Jewish volunteer medical service, were burned in an arson attack that British intelligence agencies believe was also linked to Iran. HAYI later claimed responsibility for the incident, although the Met Police said it could not confirm the authenticity of its claim.

On 29 April the so-called group claimed responsibility for an attack on two Jewish men in Golders Green which was declared a terrorism incident. A third Muslim man was also stabbed by the same perpetrator hours earlier. Police commissioner Mark Rowley said that the suspect had a “history of serious violence and mental health issues”.

In 2022, Iran is believed to have hired a someone to assassinate presenters of Iran International, a plot that was foiled by authorities.

There have also been reports of an explosion outside the US embassy in Oslo, Norway in March, which the BBC noted coincided with the release of a since-deleted video of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that authorities were also investigating in connection with the incident.

France also probed a possible Iran link after a thwarted bomb attack outside of a Bank of America building in Paris in March this year, around a month into the conflict.

Cyber attacks

Hackers linked to Iran were also blamed for a cyber-attack that is reported to have shut down a UK power plant for four days, according to reports in The Telegraph.

Iranian hackers also boasted about hacking into FBI director Kash Patel’s personal email who shared his personal images and content online.

American data centres across the Middle East have also been affected with Iranian shahed drones striking two Amazon Web Services data centres in the Unite Arab Emirates, with a third commercial data centre hit in Bahrain.