She saw something; she said something.
The suspected terror plot to attack a British base that is used by US bombers was potentially foiled by a nosy farmer in the local village who saw masked men in vans acting suspiciously and called the cops, according to a report.
The three vans were spotted en route to RAF Fairford in southwest England early on Sunday by a resident from the nearby village of Whelford, Gloucestershire — population 178, a local told the UK Sun.
The unidentified farmer, who lives on the edge of the airbase, was returning from a party in the early hours when she came across three seemingly abandoned white vans blocking a quiet country lane, the Telegraph reported.
The vans appeared suspicious, with an apparently fake phone number one digit too short and lettering on the back advertising a fake company called “FUEL 2YOU,” the outlet reported.
As she turned her car around to go back, she suddenly saw a group of men wearing ski masks scattering into the trees and across fields towards the base.
“I just thought what the hell are they doing… I saw a group of Middle Eastern-looking young guys running off through the trees. Some of them had masks or balaclavas on, and they all scattered ahead of us as we drove back past,” she told the Telegraph.
“Some of them ran into the fields, and some of them turned to run towards the air base. We realised this was something pretty serious. We knew the air base had a credible threat of a terrorist attack before last night. So as soon as I saw them I was worried,” the farmer continued.
The farmer drove away and called the police, while also messaging a local WhatsApp group warning people to lock their doors as armed cops descended on the sleepy village some 90 miles from London.
Within 25 minutes, the men had been arrested, with dramatic video showing five shirtless terror suspects sitting on the ground in handcuffs surrounded by armed counter-terror cops.
“Thinking about it now, and what could have happened if they had tried to stop me from driving away, I am quite lucky,” the farmer told the Telegraph.
“It is pretty incredible, realising you had a brush with potential terrorists face to face and may have foiled a terrorist plot. It was clear they had just got there. Thank God we spotted them,” she added.
A total of 85 homes within a 400-yard radius of the base were evacuated on Sunday as cops investigated the shocking incident.
British authorities are reportedly treating the foiled terror plot as a suspected Iranian-backed plan to kill American service members on the base — which is used as a launching pad for US air strikes on Iran.
The five men were taken into custody on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act.
The farmer said security appeared to have been stepped up at the base in the past week.
“We thought something was going on as they had housed B1 bombers at the base until earlier this week when they were moved. And then suddenly they started blocking entrances to the air base,” she said.
“By Friday they had sent all their civilian staff home, and then because this is a small village, we started noticing people who weren’t local and the suspicion was they were plain clothes police of some kind. We all knew something unusual was going on,” the farmer added.
Another local in the village was stopped at gunpoint at a roadblock by a group of American soldiers on Saturday evening, according to the farmer.
“They made them all put their hands out of the car, identify themselves, and then ultimately made them turn them round and would let them drive home that way. So we obviously knew they were pretty worried about something,” she said.
