US Air Force Tankers Return to Lajes in Force: 17 KC-46s on Terceira, and No New Word From Lisbon on What It Has Authorised

Seventeen KC-46 Pegasus air-to-air refuelling tankers of the United States Air Force are parked at the Lajes base on Terceira, in the Azores, the news agency Lusa reported on Saturday after checking on site, in a report carried by RTP Açores and ECO. That is two more than the 15 that arrived in the days before the United States and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February.

No Portuguese ministry had published a statement on the new arrivals by Sunday morning. The most recent words from the government on the base remain the prime minister's, given in parliament on 9 October.

What is on the ground

According to Lusa, none of the 17 aircraft took off during the morning it observed the base, and US military personnel were visible at only one of them, probably carrying out maintenance. The agency traced the build-up as follows:

• February: days before the 28 February attack, Lajes received 15 of these tankers, which refuel other aircraft in flight. Their activity stayed intense for months, with several take-offs and landings a day.
• September: the presence fell, and only six remained parked.
• 11 October: the base received a reinforcement similar to February's.
• Wednesday 21 October: images taken by amateur aircraft spotters showed eight of the tankers leaving Lajes, but on training missions only.

Lusa placed the build-up alongside the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt to the Middle East, joining the USS George H. W. Bush and USS George Washington already there, and reports in the American press that Washington and Israel could resume bombing Iran after the US midterm elections on 3 November. ECO's version of the report adds that Donald Trump, at a rally in Florida on Friday, raised the possibility of new strikes on Iran.

What Portugal has said and authorised

The legal basis has not changed since March. In an interview on 2 March, reported by Notícias ao Minuto, Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel explained that every military overflight and landing in Portugal needs authorisation, but that more than 50 countries, the United States among them, hold a permanent annual authorisation, with Portugal having 24 hours to examine each request. For the war on Iran, he said, Portugal gave a "conditional authorisation" with three conditions: the base may be used only in response to, or retaliation for, an attack; any action must be necessary and proportionate; and it may target only military objectives. He said the United States had committed to those conditions.

On 9 October, answering the PCP's Paula Santos, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro told parliament he had an "absolutely unshakeable" conviction that the US use of Lajes had complied with all legal rules, and that the government had monitored compliance "very carefully", RTP reported. He added that everyone may make political judgements about the decisions, "with the exception of the judiciary".

That remark came a week after the Public Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal inquiry into the legality of the US use of the base, on a complaint from the Bloco de Esquerda, which calls it a "gross violation of international law". The inquiry remains open, as it was when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Lisbon on 8 October.

What to watch

The questions now are whether the tankers fly operational missions rather than training sorties, whether the government says if any new request has been made under the March conditions, and whether the prosecutors' inquiry produces any finding. So far, the government's account of what it has authorised has come only when ministers were questioned, in interviews or in parliament.