New terror busts in the UK:
British police said on Saturday they had arrested 14 men in a major new anti-terrorism operation in the capital just three weeks after uncovering a suspected plot to bring down U.S.-bound airliners over the Atlantic.Officers arrested the men in raids in south and east London on Friday night and early on Saturday morning.
"Officers from the Metropolitan Police Service's Anti-Terrorist Branch have arrested 14 men under the Terrorism Act 2000 in a pre-planned, intelligence-led operation," London police said in a statement.
The men were arrested on suspicion of "the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism", and were being held at a central London police station, police said.
They gave no details of what the men were suspected of doing, but said the operation was not related to the arrests of more than 20 people on August 9-10 in connection with an alleged plot by a group of British Muslims to blow up U.S.-bound airliners using liquid explosives.
Nor were they related to the July 7 attacks last year when four British Islamist suicide bombers killed 52 people in rush-hour attacks on London transport, they said.
The police said the arrests followed many months of surveillance and investigation in a joint operation involving the police anti-terrorist branch and the security service.
Said Peter Clarke, head of Metropolitan Police anti-terror efforts, "What we've learned since 9/11 is that the threat is not something that's simply coming from overseas into the United Kingdom. What we've learned, and what we've seen all too graphically and all too murderously, is that we have a threat which is being generated here within the United Kingdom."
Posted by floridacracker at September 2, 2006 03:01 AMyes, it is..
Posted by: csason at September 2, 2006 09:48 AMBritan has a rather large percentage of Muslims...
From LGF:
LONDON (AFP) - British police are currently trying to monitor “thousands” of potential security suspects, the head of the anti-terrorism unit at London’s Metropolitan Police said in an interview to be broadcast Sunday.
In an interview recorded in July, before the arrest of more than two dozen people on suspicion of an alleged plot to blow up US-bound aircraft, Peter Clarke said Britain was facing an increasing threat from homegrown extremists.
He refused to give an exact figure about how many people he said were either directly or indirectly involved in plotting atrocities on British soil but said the number ran into four figures.
“I don’t want to go down the numbers game, I don’t think it’s helpful,” he told a BBC television programme entitled “Al-Qaida — Time to Talk?”
“All I can say is that our knowledge is increasing and certainly in terms of broad description, the numbers of people who we have to be interested in are into the thousands.”
He added: “That includes a whole range of people, not just terrorists, not just attackers, but people who might be tempted to support or encourage or to assist.”
It should be noted that the Brits don't have the ACLU and CAIR to play hob with the common sense laws they have for surveilance there.
Posted by: Gmac at September 2, 2006 11:08 AMDang.... Great Britain ^ insert into first sentence for flubtastic spelling foo foo.
See what happens to a sleep deprived brain when it see's but fails to comprehend... and is distracted by video of the ABB on the side of the screen.
Posted by: Gmac at September 2, 2006 11:14 AM