Terror arrests after fears of football bomb
By Russell Jenkins and Daniel McGrory
MI5 and police hold ten suspects after series of raids
TEN people were arrested in a series of armed police raids yesterday amid fears that Islamic militants were plotting to bomb a Premiership football ground or a shopping centre in Manchester.
Security services are believed to have mounted electronic surveillance which suggested a possible attack aimed at a “large gathering of people”.
One security service source said that the arrests were part of a continuing investigation after concern that targets in the North West were being scouted. Senior officers refused to comment on speculation that likely targets included Manchester’s United Old Trafford ground and the City of Manchester Stadium, built for the Commonwealth Games and now home to Manchester City.
The city has two of the country’s biggest shopping precincts the Trafford Centre, which attracts 27 million visitors a year, and the Arndale.
More than 400 police, backed by Scotland Yard counter-terrorist officers and MI5 agents, took part in the co-ordinated early-morning raids across Greater Manchester and three counties.
All those arrested were said to be North Africans or Iraqi Kurds and are believed to be seeking Home Office permits to live and work in Britain. In Manchester, six men and a woman were seized under the Terrorism Act 2000. Three men were arrested in Staffordshire, South Yorkshire and the West Midlands.
The nine men and one woman were being questioned last night at a number of high-security police stations under suspicion of being concerned with the commission and preparation or the instigation of acts of terrorism. They can be held for up a fortnight without being charged.
The raids on at least seven addresses are understood to be part of an operation which began last year and has resulted in a number of high-profile arrests. The investigation prompted ministers to heighten security in Britain before Christmas. Greater Manchester Police has stepped up terrorist surveillance operations in the past few weeks and moved 50 officers from regular duties to a task force.
Assistant Chief Constable David Whatton, of Greater Manchester Police, said: “I am aware that there is extensive speculation about possible targets. As with any counter-terrorist operation, we will not confirm or deny any targets.”
Mr Whatton described the arrests as part of an operation “looking at the threat of terrorism across the whole of the United Kingdom”. Police would not disclose what triggered the timing of the arrests.
One of the addresses raided was a flat in Upper Brook Street, near Manchester city centre. Forensic science experts spent the day inside the flat, above a fast food restuarant. Items were taken away in black plastic dustbin liners, but they were not thought to include explosives.
Neighbours expressed surprise that the Iraqi Kurd living at the flat had been arrested, describing him as “friendly, polite and soft spoken”.
They said that the man, thought to be in his early 20s, worked at the Dolphins restaurant, which is owned by his two brothers, who were not detained. The owners of a computer firm next door said that they were woken by the raid, which began at 4am.
Teresa Powell, who lives near by, said that the men who worked in restuarant had said that they were from Mamaris, in Turkey. “There were three or four of them, and all of them really nice men and very hard working.”
The area is bedsit territory, popular with students from Manchester University and immigrant families. It is about six miles from the £980 million Trafford Centre, one of the biggest in Europe, with 280 stores and 36 restaurants.
Eight years ago, the IRA set off the biggest bomb on the UK mainland since the Second World War, destroying many buildings in the centre of Manchester.
Islamic clerics in Manchester said that those arrested were not linked to two mosques in the Upper Brook Street area.
Sheikh Mohammed bal Qadri, deputy director of the Islamic Academy, said: “There are no suspicious activities at this mosque. Since September 11 we have been very vigilant, as mosques should be. If I see a person who is new, I ask him why he is here and what he is doing. We are against all these evil acts.”
There is no link with arrests earlier this month in London and the Home Counties where all those detained are British-born and of Pakistani origin. They have been charged with terrorism offences.
In those raids, 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, which can be used in bomb making, was recovered.
Separately, a number of people from north Africa, in particular Algeria, are being detained indefinitely without trial under emergency antiterrorist legislation. A number of other Algerian-born militants have been jailed in the UK for their part in organising fake identity documents and cloned credit cards to raise money for groups linked to al-Qaeda.
Islamic militants from Algeria and Morocco were also behind the Madrid train bombings which killed 192 people last month. The same group was also behind the suicide attacks in Casablanca last year which killed 46 people.
