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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026

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Per BBC coverage which is consistent with X discussion, 5 British citizens resident in London, early 20's men. The poorly-lit news photos of the arrest (British police don't publish mugshots) imply that they aren't black, but aren't clear enough to distinguish "probably European" from "probably Middle Eastern".

Given the ages, these won't be naturalised immigrants. Either they are British-born, or they were brought to the UK as children by their immigrant parents. Conservative (i.e. partisan, not generically right-wing) poasters are dunking on Reform and Restore poasters who speculated that they were small boat immigrants. The addresses given by the police are in sufficiently wealthy parts of London that we can assume that they were living in social housing, although we don't know if they live with their parents or not.

I do not think the "diesel thief" theory is plausible - diesel thieves would not have travelled all the way from London to rob a US airbase. My initial guess is that the 5 were working for the Iranians, but but @orthoxerox's theory of radical leftists motivated by Israel-Palestine is also plausible.

From the photos I’ve seen they seem too dark and curly haired to be either Persian or Israeli.

I do not think the "diesel thief" theory is plausible - diesel thieves would not have travelled all the way from London to rob a US airbase.

Wouldn't be the first time diesel thieves tried to rob a US airbase

Or from a non-US base in England, even. That one was a bit more "Bavarian fire drill", less "dark of night", though.