12 Arrested In Very Serious Terror Plot In UK
British police Wednesday arrested 12 people in a counterterrorism operation, and locations were being searched, authorities said.
A Scotland Yard official’s papers show details of the raid, which have been obscured in this photo.
Arrests were carried out in a series of raids in northwest England, police said. Participating agencies included Merseyside Police, Greater Manchester Police and the Lancashire Constabulary, according to a statement from Greater Manchester Police.
The men arrested were involved in a “very serious” plot closely associated with al Qaeda and escaped al Qaeda operative Rashid Rauf, whom British intelligence have linked to the 2006 plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners, according to a security source with knowledge of the investigation.
The new plot was not believed to be targeting national infrastructure, such as rail lines, airports or utilities, nor was it clear if the plot was to involved bombs or an assault involving gunmen, the source said.
Details, the source said, were speculative at this point in the investigation.
The source also said authorities don’t believe the targets would have been in the north of England, where the arrests took place, and that at least some of those arrested were Pakistanis in the United Kingdom on student visas.
Several hundred officers were involved in the raids, according to a later Greater Manchester Police statement. The men arrested range in age from a youth in his mid- to late teens to a 41-year-old, the statement said. No further information was available, police said.
“Today’s action is part of an ongoing investigation and we have acted on intelligence received,” said Steve Ashley, chief superintendent of Merseyside police.
Category: World Report
I sincerely hope our men and women of our strategic services are prepared to deal with such a situation here. We are fortunate to have these men and women to keep us safe and protected and we owe them a debt of gratitude for doing their jobs. They are the main link in the chain but the upper echelon are not up to their tasks and are asleep at the wheel. It’s the 24-7 street warriors who will keep us safe, not their bosses.