British police arrested five men and evacuated homes near RAF Fairford, a Royal Air Force base in Gloucestershire that hosts U.S. forces, after officers responded to reports of three suspicious vehicles moving toward the installation in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Gloucestershire Police said the men were first held "on suspicion of committing offenses under the Explosives Act" before being further arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act, according to CNN and NBC News. All five remain in custody, and police have not disclosed what they believe the men were planning.

Dozens of homes in the nearby village of Whelford, roughly two miles from the base, were evacuated as a precaution once officers declared a "major incident." Army bomb disposal units were sent to the scene and the investigation was still active as of Sunday, according to NPR.

A base at the center of the Iran campaign

RAF Fairford has taken on outsized importance in recent months. Since February, the base has served as a key hub for American operations against Iran, hosting U.S. Air Force aircraft involved in the campaign, per CBS News. That role has made the installation, and the sleepy Cotswolds villages around it, an unlikely flashpoint in a much larger geopolitical fight.

THEY WERE LOOKING TO DO 'BIG DAMAGE'

President Trump, asked about the arrests, said the men taken into custody near the base were looking to do "big damage," a characterization reported by CNBC as investigators continued piecing together the men's intentions. Neither Trump nor British authorities offered further detail on what evidence led to that assessment.

No explosives were reported found in the initial hours of the operation, and officials cautioned that the situation remained fluid. Gloucestershire Police said residents evacuated from the area would be updated as soon as it was safe to return home.

The arrests come amid heightened security around U.S. and allied military installations in Britain more broadly, though authorities have not linked Sunday's incident to any specific prior threat. RAF Fairford, best known in peacetime as the annual host of the Royal International Air Tattoo, has for decades served as a standby base for U.S. bomber deployments to Europe.

Investigators were expected to continue questioning the five men through the weekend. British counterterrorism law allows suspects held on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts to be detained for extended questioning before any charges are filed.