Donald Trump has said that a ‘specific threat’ prompted the United States to withdraw its B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford following an alleged foiled terror plot.

The Pentagon confirmed on Sunday that aircraft which were being stationed at the Gloucestershire base had been ‘redeployed to their home stations in the US’.

It came after the arrests of six individuals over the past week in connection with a suspected terror plot targeting the base.

President Trump has now said that the bombers ‘didn’t fly out by accident’ and left due to a ‘threat’ – despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio playing down the redeployment only hours earlier.

Trump told reporters while leaving the White House on Monday: ‘There were some threats and, rather than tempting the enemy, we’ll capture the enemy and beat the enemy.

‘Why should we leave them [the aircraft] there? So we moved them around a little bit, not very far.’

Rubio had insisted earlier on Monday that the country’s decision to remove its bombers was not ‘directly tied’ to last week’s incident in Gloucestershire.

He said: ‘I wouldn’t directly tie that [the incident at RAF Fairford] to the move which was made.

‘It’s not unusual to see rotations happen and movement of assets to different parts of the world based on exercises and redeployment.

‘We have confidence in the security of all of our bases. All of our bases theoretically could be threatened at any moment, and that’s why there’s so much security built around them.

‘With the Brits we’ve worked very closely for a very long time, including on this investigation, and they couldn’t be more cooperative.’

US officials told the New York Times the redeployment of the bombers, which have been involved in carrying out strikes on Iran, had been ordered after more specific details about threats to the base emerged over the weekend.

Asked today whether RAF Fairford was safe, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘Yes.’

He also pointed to comments by Defence Secretary Wes Streeting saying there were ‘tried and tested approaches to defend our bases around the country and throughout the world’, but he declined to comment further on ‘foreign nations’ military operations’.

Read More: Donald Trump says ‘a specific threat’ saw US withdraw its bombers from RAF Fairford