Tuesday, December 21, 2010
LONDON |
Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:54am EST
LONDON (Reuters) - British police said on Monday 12 men suspected of preparing a terrorist attack had been arrested in a series of dawn raids across England and Wales.
West Midlands regional police said they had detained five men from Cardiff, four from Stoke-on-Trent and three from London."They've all been held on suspicion of the commission, preparation, or instigation of an act of terrorism in the UK," a police spokesman said. The suspects, aged between 17 and 28, were detained by unarmed officers at around 5 a.m. British time, he said.A senior Iraqi official had said last week that he believed Al Qaeda was planning attacks in the United States, Britain and Europe around Christmas, one year after a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner.Searches were being conducted at the home addresses of the 12, an address in Birmingham and a separate address in the capital, the police spokesman added.Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who is in charge of counter-terrorism policing nationally, said the swoop was a large-scale, pre-planned and intelligence-led operation involving several forces."The operation is in its early !
stages so we are unable to go into detail at this time about the suspected offences," he said in a statement. "However, I believe it was necessary at this time to take action in order to ensure public safety."(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; editing by Keith Weir and Mark Heinrich)
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