Counterterrorism police in Britain arrested a 27-year-old dual British-Iranian national in London on Thursday on suspicion of preparing an act of terrorism, the sixth arrest in an investigation into an alleged plan targeting RAF Fairford, the Gloucestershire airfield that American B-1 and B-52 bombers have used during this year's conflict with Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The plot, if that is what it was, caused no damage and no injuries. What should catch the attention of Canadian underwriters and brokers is the method British investigators are examining: whether a hostile state used criminal go-betweens, possibly unaware of who was behind them, to do its work. Canada's own intelligence service has been warning about exactly that playbook on home soil for more than a year.
The investigation opened before dawn on Sunday, when police picked up five London men in their twenties after three vans were seen near the base, The Associated Press reported. Instead of explosives, officers found barrels of fuel, and all five were bailed on Monday, according to Al Jazeera. The Journal reported that one of the five had alerted emergency services himself, fuelling theories that he got cold feet.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there were strong signs of Iranian involvement. Thursday brought the dual national's arrest, along with the questioning of a 26-year-old British man and searches at two addresses, the Journal reported. Vicki Evans, who coordinates counterterrorism policing nationally, said investigators were looking at "all possible angles—including possible foreign state involvement."
Iran's embassy in London has rejected any link, and Tehran's Revolutionary Guard had warned in July that Fairford was a legitimate target, Al Jazeera reported. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel warned Britain about a suspected Iranian plan weeks ago, a claim London has not addressed publicly.
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Outsourcing an attack to local criminals gives a government deniability. It also leaves insurers with a classification headache. A standard commercial property policy excludes war; terrorism cover responds to some politically motivated attacks but not others; and political violence policies are designed to bridge the gap, with wordings that typically add sabotage, riot, strikes and civil commotion.
Tarique Nageer, terrorism placement advisor at Marsh Risk, warned in March that the US-Iran conflict was "blurring the lines between terrorism, political violence and civil unrest." Buyers have responded by asking for broader political violence wordings that go beyond pure terrorism, and insurers in volatile regions increasingly prefer to sell that broader cover to sidestep grey-area disputes, according to WTW's Terrorism Pool Index.
Had the Fairford plot succeeded, the coverage answer might have depended on whether, and when, a government publicly pinned it on Tehran. That can take months, and sometimes it never happens at all.
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The proxy model is not a foreign problem. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has said it expects Iran to keep using people tied to transnational organized crime to target perceived enemies in Canada, The Globe and Mail reported, and the agency has since said it stepped up operations against potential Iranian state-directed activity after the war began. CSIS director Dan Rogers said last November that the service had disrupted several potentially lethal Iranian threats against people in Canada, according to Global News. Ottawa listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code in June 2024.
So far, that activity has largely targeted individuals rather than property. But if a state-linked attack ever did cause major commercial damage in Canada, the insurance safety net would be thinner than south of the border. Unlike the US, with its federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, Canada has no government-backed terrorism backstop. Terrorism cover here is usually bought as a standalone layer on top of commercial property, and some wordings were originally built on US definitions that may not fit Canadian scenarios.
The global capacity those Canadian buyers rely on is also under strain. Marsh Re Bermuda's Richard Morgan has estimated the political violence and war market at about US$2.5 billion in annual premium, against Middle East losses that could approach US$2 billion, which would make it the class's first underwriting loss since 9/11. Lloyd's reported £1.4 billion in conflict-related losses in the first half of the year. Meanwhile, Allianz Commercial found that 53% of companies now rank armed conflict as their biggest political violence worry, with terrorism and sabotage at 46%, pushing the category to a record seventh place on the Allianz Risk Barometer.
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The clients most worth a call are those with assets near defence installations, defence and aerospace suppliers, energy and critical-infrastructure operators, and Canadian firms with sites in the UK, Europe or the US. Commercial landlords and owners of high-profile urban properties belong on the list too.
The review should be practical. Does the client carry terrorism cover at all, given that it is not automatic in Canada? If so, does the wording fit a Canadian scenario, or was it lifted from a US form? Does a political violence policy pick up sabotage and malicious damage, how does it define war, and does a payout depend on a government attributing the attack?
Britain's investigation may yet show that the Fairford plot was less dangerous than first feared. But the pattern behind it, a state recruiting local criminals to strike at its enemies, is one CSIS says is already operating in Canada. The time to settle the definitions is before renewal, not after a claim.
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