Seven arrested in anti-terrorism police raids

POLICE involved in anti-terrorism raids were last night carrying out searches of addresses in Britain following the arrest of seven suspects.

Six men and one woman were being questioned by officers after a series of early morning raids in Edinburgh, London, Manchester and Glasgow.

Those arrested in England will be taken to Scotland and they will all be questioned at a secure location.

Anti-terrorism officers carrying out a search of the addresses said they have not found any dangerous substances.

Two men were arrested in Edinburgh, another two in London, one man in Greater Manchester, and a man and woman in Glasgow.

They were all detained under the Terrorism Act 2000 as part of an operation led by Lothian and Borders Police, assisted by Greater Manchester Police, the anti-terrorist squad of the Metropolitan Police and Strathclyde Police.

At the raid in Glasgow, police officers wearing full body armour arrived at Rosemount Street, Royston. A cordon was set up around a ground-floor flat and three men were seen carrying what looked like evidence bags into the flat at around 8.40am.

The man arrested in Glasgow is understood to be of foreign extraction and had been living with the woman, who is believed to be British.

A car was taken away this morning by police for forensic examination.

Forensic officers had initially been wearing protective suits as a precaution but they were not thought necessary later. A police spokesman at the scene said he expected the search of the flats to last for around two days.

In Germany, police raided Islamic centres and arrested men suspected of planning an attack on a US target and having links to the Hamburg-based cell of September 11 suicide pilots. Police held three suspects for questioning and searched Islamic centres in Muenster and Minden as well as four other sites in raids that began at dawn.

Two of the men are suspected of forming a group that planned attacks in Germany at the end of 2001 or the start of 2002, including an attack “on an American installation in the Frankfurt metropolitan area,” said prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors suspect the third man supported the Hamburg terror cell that included three of the September 11 suicide pilots, including lead hijacker Mohamed Atta.