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Terror arrests in London

July 5, 2012

Scotland Yard announced on Thursday that it had arrested six people in a series of raids in the British capital. One residential address raided was near the Olympic Park, but police said there was no tie to the Games.

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Police officers stand outside a house in Stratford east London, July 5, 2012. Five men and a woman suspected of preparing terrorist attacks were arrested during early morning police raids across London on Thursday, police said. Police said the operation was not linked to the Olympics, which start in London on July 27, but was part of a planned intelligence-led operation. A security source said the London arrests were related to international Islamist militancy and were made at an early stage of plotting. It was not clear if any targets were identified.REUTERS/Paul Hackett (BRITAIN - Tags: CRIME LAW POLITICS)
London sechs Terrorverdächtige festgenommenImage: Reuters

British police carried out a string of raids in London on Thursday morning, arresting six men aged 18 to 30. Scotland Yard referred to the action as a pre-planned anti-terror operation, also saying that the arrests were not connected to the Olympic Games, which begin on July 27 in London.

Police did not identify the six people arrested, saying they were all taken to a police station in south-east London.

This aerial video image made available by Sky TV shows fire engines, ambulances and emergency vehicles at the scene on the M6 toll motorway, near Weeford toll plaza in the West Midlands, England, around 116 miles (187 kilometers) north of London, after the motorway was closed following a police-led incident Thursday July 5, 2012.
The motorway was shut in both directions, but police later said there was no dangerImage: AP

To the north of London, in an incident the police said was unrelated, a stretch of the busy M6 motorway was closed near Birmingham on Thursday. The incident took place at a toll station on the motorway near England's second city. Police cleared a bus carrying 48 passengers, arresting one of them, apparently after a passenger was acting suspiciously on board. Subsequently, however, the police issued a statement concluding that "no-one is being treated as a suspect after armed police evacuated a coach on the M6."

Police in the UK are on high alert ahead of the Olympic Games, though intelligence officials have said that no specific or credible terror threats have been identified that are connected to the Games.

msh/sej (AP, dpa, Reuters)