Entrance to British Royal Air Force base RAF Lakenheath, which hosts the 48th Fighter Wing of the US Air Force, in eastern England.
Day 260 | US forces say responded to suspected drone activity over base in Britain
US forces responded to possible drone activity over a military base in Britain on Friday, a US Air Force spokesperson said, in the latest security incident at a facility hosting American military aircraft.
"No personnel, aircraft or infrastructure were affected" at the RAF Lakenheath base, the Air Force spokesperson said in a statement.
"We continue to work closely with our host nation counterparts to ensure the safety and security of our US service members, US and host nation civilians, contractors, and all of our families," the statement added.
The possible drone incident came after the US Justice Department announced charges earlier in the week against three men it described as "Iranian operatives" over their role in an alleged terrorist plot at RAF Fairford, another British base.
The three men allegedly helped plan and direct the September incident at the base, which came to light when police were called after a local farmer reported seeing a group of men with several white vans engaged in "suspicious" activity.
A US charging document stated that a man identified as Mohammad Ali al-Hassani directed unnamed individuals to drive to the base in the vans, some of which contained barrels of fuel, and that he earlier paid the group to buy metallic objects that could be used as shrapnel.
Days after the incident, the United States withdrew all its B-1 bombers from the base.
The United States has flown military aircraft from bases in Britain as part of the US-‘Israeli’ war against Iran launched earlier this year.
In an interview broadcast Wednesday, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei threatened to strike US bases beyond the Middle East, including in Europe, if they are used for attacks against the Islamic republic.
Trump, Xi, Putin to meet in China: White House
US President Donald Trump, Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping will hold a rare three-way meeting next week on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Shenzhen, China, the White House said Friday.
"The president has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world. This proliferation, President Trump believes, is very dangerous," White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters of the talks, set for Thursday.
Trump will discuss Iran with his Chinese and Russian counterparts in the talks, but is not expected to talk about Russia's war on Ukraine, a senior US official cited by AFP said Friday.
"I think the president does intend to talk about Iran in the trilateral meeting with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin," the US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters on a call ahead of Thursday's meeting in Shenzhen.
But Washington has a "whole other track" of negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow, the official added. "China is not really a part of that track, so it doesn't seem appropriate to have the Ukraine discussion there."
US grounds all flights, sparking travel chaos
All flights in the US were grounded Friday, sparking travel chaos across the vast country, after what government officials said was a major communications outage, insisting it was not the result of any "nefarious attack."
The nationwide stop left tens of thousands of passengers in limbo, with some pulled off planes moments before departure by airline staff who appeared in the dark about unfolding events.
The incident marked only the second time such an alert was given in US airspace since the 9/11 attacks.
The Federal Aviation Administration "issued a nationwide ground stop for all US airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers," the agency said. "FAA technicians are investigating the issue."
In a subsequent message on X, the agency described the problem as "a temporary telecommunications outage" and said it was acting "out of an abundance of caution."
CNN, citing two officials, said that “preliminary reports indicate the communication issue affecting US flights is not a cyberattack”.
According to flight tracking website FlightAware, there were more than 7,800 flights delayed across the United States and around 350 cancellations.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no sign of a threat to the United States.
"This isn't another 9/11," he said.
"There was no indication, as of yet, that this was a nefarious attack against us, it's just a telecommunication outage, as of right now," Mullin said, adding officials were "not ruling out anything at this point."
There was a short nationwide stop in January 2023 when a pilot notification system failed, but the only other national stop happened in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, when no aircraft took to the skies for days.
Friday's FAA order came a day after US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy formally asked Congress for $30 billion to upgrade and modernize the US Air Traffic Control System.
"This investment is critical to complete the modernization of our national airspace -- delivering a resilient telecommunications backbone for air traffic controllers, modern hardware and software, state-of-the-art control towers, and world-class airport infrastructure," Duffy and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote in a letter to lawmakers.
It also came the same day that Microsoft apologized for a global outage that wreaked havoc for millions of users, public services and businesses worldwide.
The company ruled out any malicious "cyber or AI" activity as the cause of the disruption, which affected several Microsoft products from Thursday. Most operations had resumed by late Friday.
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