|
Police grill terror suspects
04/08/2004 11:35 - (SA)
London - Police held 13 men for questioning on Wednesday in the wake of a major anti-terrorist swoop in London and other parts of England triggered by intelligence on "alleged international terrorism".
"Thirteen men were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 (on Tuesday) as part of a pre-planned, ongoing intelligence-led operation," the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
"The men have been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism," it said.
BBC television, citing police sources, said the suspects were "all of (south) Asian origin", and that it was thought that at least some of them were British nationals.
Crackdown on al-Qaeda suspects
It also said that Tuesday's raids were "not directly linked" with a dramatic crackdown on al-Qaeda suspects in Pakistan which has prompted a heightened state of terrorist alert in the United States.
Two of the 13 were arrested at gunpoint in Blackburn, Lancashire from a gold-coloured Mercedes-Benz sedan, said the public broadcaster, which showed video from the scene on its main late-evening newscast.
"There were quite a lot of armed police floating around with a Mercedes in the middle of the road and a young lad in the gutter with guns (pointed) on them," a woman who witnessed the incident told the BBC.
Other suspects were picked up in north-west London; in Bushey in Hertfordshire, central England; and in Luton in Bedfordshire, also in central England.
The BBC said a large section of Luton around a cricket ground was closed off on Tuesday. The city, north-west of London, is home to a large community of Muslims of South Asian origin.
One of those arrested was reported to have been pulled from his car as he headed out of Luton by seven armed police officers.
Eyewitness Leigh Mayes, 70, said seven officers, carrying semi-automatic machine-guns, held the man against his maroon hatchback for nearly three hours while forensic teams carried out searches.
The 13 suspects - all in their 20s and 30s - were taken to a central London police station to be questioned by officers of the Metropolitan Police's anti-terrorist branch.
"Today's operation is part of continuing and extensive inquiries by police and the Security Service into alleged international terrorism," the police statement Tuesday said.
On Sunday the Home Office said Britain remains under a "real and serious" threat from terrorism, after the US authorities warned of potential truck or car bomb attacks against financial institutions in Washington and New York.
But while police in London are said to have spoken to branches of US banks in the British capital, security on this side of the Atlantic has not been increased by any notable degree.
The Home Office indicated only that no specific threat had been uncovered, saying: "We are maintaining a state of heightened readiness in the United Kingdom."
- AFP
|
News
