Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
O’neill’s World Cup dream dashed Her incredible interview NEO-NAZIS ARMY SHOCK
Probe after four soldiers are held in police terror swoops on barracks
FEARS were growing last night that the British Army has been infiltrated by neo-nazis after four soldiers were arrested.
Police raided barracks in England, Wales and Cyprus yesterday in a crackdown on banned terrorist group National Action.
The troops’ arrests come weeks after former Royal Marine Ciaran Maxwell, from Co Antrim, was jailed for making bombs for dissident republicans.
ANTI-TERROR officers yesterday raided Army barracks to arrest four soldiers allegedly linked to a banned neo-nazi group.
Officers held the men in a series of pre-planned swoops targeting the National Action group.
The four soldiers are suspected of being members.
National Action is the first right-wing group to be banned as a terrorist organisation.
After MP Jo Cox was killed in June last year by Naziobsessed loner Thomas Mair, the group hailed her murderer online.
The soldiers held – a 22-year-old from Birmingham, a 32-year-old from Powys plus 24-year-olds from Ipswich and Northampton – were last night being quizzed at a police station in the West Midlands. The eldest of the four was arrested in Brecon – a main training ground for the SAS. It is understood he is an Army fitness instructor. Police searched at the Dering Lines barracks in the midwales town. He is believed to have met the three other suspects – members of the Royal Anglian Regiment – during training in Brecon. One of the 24-year-old soldiers was held in Ipswich and two suspects at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. The Ministry of Defence said the arrests “are the consequence of a police force-led operation supported by the Army”.