London: Anti -British terrorism officials arrested several Iranian people on an alleged conspiracy to attack an unspecified target in London, the Metropolitan Police Force said on Sunday.
Police said five people aged 29 to 46 were detained on Saturday on suspicion of formulating “a terrorist act” in various parts of England. There are four Iranian citizens and the fifth nationality is still being established.
All the suspects are being questioned at police stations and they have not been charged. Police said they were searching for several assets in London, Manchester in England and Swindon in Western England.
Police said the plot of attack targeted the same place which was not being nominated for “operational reasons”.
Dominic Murphy, the chief commander of the Force Counter Terrorism Command, said the police are still working to establish a motive “as well as to identify if there could be any other risk to the public.”
Police said three other Iranian men aged 39, 44 and 55 were arrested in London on suspicion of a national security crime as part of an unrelated investigation.
Home Secretary Yatete Cooper said that arrests were “serious incidents that demonstrate the ongoing need to customize our response to national security hazards.
“The government has continued to work with police and intelligence agencies to support all the action and security assessments necessary to keep the country safe,” he said.
Police have not determined whether the alleged plot is associated with Iran or not, but the UK’s domestic intelligence service has warned of increasing threat from the attackers associated with Tehran.
In October, the head of the MI5 Domestic Security Service, Ken McCallum said that his agents and police have faced 20 “potentially deadly” plots supported by Iran since 2022, which are aimed at Iranians in Britain opposing the country’s authorities.
He said that when the struggle in the Middle East deepened at a time, there was a risk of increasing, or widening of the aggression of the Iranian state in Britain.
In March 2024, a presenter was stabbed in a leg outside his house in Pauria Zarati, a presenter at a Persian-language television station of the Iranian government. Two people were later arrested in Romania and accused of attack.
The official terrorist threat level of the UK stands in the middle of the five-point scale, which means an attack is likely.
