Police stop suspected Christmas terrorist plot

Armed police have swooped on a number of properties in an operation to foil a suspected Christmas terrorism plot. An army bomb squad was deployed following a raid in Chesterfield yesterday. Officers also conducted early morning operations in three areas of Sheffield.

Counter-terrorism police said three men aged 22, 36 and 41 were detained at different addresses in Sheffield. A 31-year-old was held in Chesterfield.

An area of the north Derbyshire town was sealed off for much of yesterday as the bomb disposal team worked with large numbers of police behind a cordon.

Residents in the Meersbrook area of Sheffield said they were woken by police blowing open the door of a run-down terraced house as their street was swamped by heavily armed officers in protective gear.

A mosque and community centre was sealed off a few miles further north in the Burngreave area. Locals told similar stories of being woken at 6am by a series of loud bangs and camouflaged officers with guns.

Two other raids are understood to have happened at a flat a short distance from the centre in Burngreave and a property in the town of Stocksbridge, just north of Sheffield.

The operation was mounted as police and MI5 tackle a terrorist threat seen as unprecedented.