U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed Monday the withdrawal of B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom, roughly a week after a suspected terror plot targeting the base was thwarted, saying he would not directly link the two events. Rubio said movements of U.S. military assets around the world are routine and carried out according to operational needs, including exercises, redeployments and rotations of personnel and aircraft.
“We’ve documented what happened last week. I wouldn’t directly tie that to the move that was made,” Rubio told reporters. “It’s not unusual to see movement of assets to different parts of the world based on exercises, redeployments, people changing out and new people coming in, new planes coming in and old planes going out.”
The Pentagon confirmed Sunday that all U.S. bombers deployed to RAF Fairford had returned to their home stations in the United States. The military stressed that American B-1, B-2 and B-52 crews remain capable of launching precision global strikes from the continental United States “anywhere, any time.”