LONDON, 3 September 2006 — Britain’s terror alert continues unabated as armed police yesterday raided several premises nationwide including an independent Islamic school, a Chinese restaurant and several homes in Crowborough in East Sussex, Manchester and London. Scotland Yard confirmed that a total of 14 people have been arrested under the 2006 Terrorism Act.
The raids, according to security sources, were intelligence-led. Police had been monitoring the individuals and organizations for more than six months, and decided to act. These raids follow the ones on Aug. 10 in London, Birmingham and High Wycombe, codenamed “Operation Overt.”
The raids in Manchester’s Cheetham Hill area resulted in the arrest of two people and according to the Greater Manchester Police, are unrelated to “Operation Overt.” The arrests are in connection with raids that took place on Aug. 23 when one man was held and a house searched.
The length of surveillance and covert activity and the sheer scale of the anti-terror operations, suggest that MI5 and Scotland Yard have successfully infiltrated the so-called extremist “Islamist” groups operating in the UK.
Both Home Secretary John Reid and Scotland Yard Chief Sir Ian Blair have warned that the terror alert, currently classified as “severe,” is likely to continue for a long time and have urged Britons to be vigilant.
The first raid was on a halal Chinese restaurant in Borough in southeast London called The Bridge to China Town at 10 p.m. on Friday evening continuing into the early hours of yesterday.
The raids, according to one BBC report, came “after months of surveillance into those suspected of recruiting or encouraging others to take part in terrorist activities.”
However, civil liberties groups are concerned that the raid by a company of 40 to 60 police wearing riot gear was made in a show of undue force in a public place where there were women and children.
Police targeted a group of 15 diners, including two children, and informed them that they were being questioned under the Terrorism Act 2000 on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. The restaurant arrests are not linked to the recent alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners, or the July 7 bombings in London. According to Mehdi Belyani, the Iranian owner of the restaurant, the 12 arrested were aged between 25 and 35 and are believed to be young British Muslims of Pakistani origin. “The police stayed for more than two hours talking to the group one by one. The men were very calm and I could not hear what was being said but my other customers were all very shocked,” he told reporters.
Anti-terrorist officers at the same time also carried out raids on a number of addresses in other parts of London and England.
Scotland Yard officers raided the Jamiah Islamiah, an independent school for Muslim boys aged 11 to 16 in Mark Cross, Crowborough, East Sussex, but no arrests have been made.
The police have imposed a three-mile exclusion zone around the school site.
The school, which has a 54-acre ground, claims to train teachers to teach in local mosques and madrasas. At the time of its last inspection though, the schools reportedly had only nine pupils.
