Saturday, September 02, 2006

British arrest 16 men in anti-terror raids

And in a new twist, while they were eating at a Chinese restaurant. Not sure what the relevance to that is, but we'll go with it.

LONDON (Reuters) - British police said on Saturday they had arrested 16 men in two separate anti-terrorism operations just three weeks after uncovering a suspected plot to bring down U.S.-bound airliners over the Atlantic.

Fourteen of the men were held in London in an operation that a police source said focused on suspected "training, recruitment and encouraging others to take part in terrorist activity."

Anti-terrorist police in Manchester arrested two men early on Saturday and were carrying out three searches but this was not linked to the London arrests, police there said.

The BBC said 12 of the London arrests were made at or near a Chinese restaurant in south London that police in riot gear raided on Friday night, questioning diners for hours and taking some away in handcuffs.

The BBC said the probe may be linked to alleged "training camps" in Britain, saying there had been reports of militants getting together for adventure training as a means to develop closer ties.


What's with the Chinese food thing? More importantly, however, this was not necessarily in connection to the attempted plot to bomb several airliners a few weeks back.

What is a scary thought is the theory that militants terrorists are getting together for training type exercises in Western countries. I would think the likelihood of this type of training would be more prevalent in the US, simply because we've got more room, from a geographic view, than Britain. Who's to say what's going on up in the Sierras, Rockies, deserts, or other extreme corners of our country...

I saw HotAir post on this a while ago. His sixth sense/all seeing eye must have alerted him that evildoers were being brought to justice.

One last tidbit... British authorities also mentioned that not even an hour into custody the suspects demanded that they be taken back to the restaurant for a few more egg rolls complaining that they'd not gotten their fill...