The police in riot gear burst into a London mosque on Monday in Britain's biggest anti-terror operation since the September 11 attacks, arresting seven people as part of a wider probe into the discovery of ricin poison.
The police said they believed the mosque played a role in recruiting suspected attackers and in supporting their operations both in Britain and abroad.
Officers swarmed out of about 50 police vehicles into Finsbury Park Mosque in north London in the early hours. They used ladders to break in through windows while helicopters circled overhead illuminating the building with spotlights. “It was absolutes crazy. I couldn't believe what was happening,” Mr Matthew David, 27, who lives next door to the mosque said.
London’s Scotland Yard police said officers arrested seven people following the raid on the mosque and two adjacent private homes in a pre-planned intelligence operation. During the raid, office avoided prayer areas “to show our respect for the Muslim faith” and focused on accommodation and office spaces. The mosque is the base of one of Britain's most outspoken Muslim clerics, Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was widely criticised after he praised Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, which Washington blames for the September 11 attacks.
Egyptian-born Mr Masri, who has one eye and wears a hook where a hand was blown off by a landmine, was not among the people arrested, security sources said. Scotland Yard said the raid was linked to the seizure on January 5 of a small amount of ricin, one of the world's deadliest poisons, in a flat in the Wood Green district nearby in north London.
A police statement said intelligence had “made this operation absolutely necessary at this time.”
“The police believe that these premises have played a role in the recruitment of suspected terrorists and in supporting their activity both here and abroad,” the statement said. “The raid was aimed specifically at individuals who have been supporting or engaging in suspected terrorist activity from within the building,” it added. The police said no chemicals had been found at the mosque. The raid came as Britain's Charity Commission threatened to evict Masri from the mosque, claiming he abused his position by preaching
“Inflammatory and highly political”
speeches, but the police said Monday's raid was not linked to this. The
mosque is a registered charity, which gives the Charity Commission the
right to intervene in its affairs if it believes the mosque is being used
for political purposes. Mr Masri, leader of a group called Supporters of
Sharat said that his lawyers had taken steps to ensure he could continue
to preach at the mosque, where several Muslims previously arrested under
British terrorism legislation are known to have worshipped. (Reuters)