UK terror police arrest 3 men over alleged neo-nazi links Suicide bomber kills 2 in southeast Iran
LONDON: The UK’S counterterrorism officials on Thursday arrested three men on suspicion of terrorism offences linked with a far-right neoNazi group.
Officers stormed the homes of a 17-year-old boy from London, a 21-year-old man from southwestern town of Bath and an 18-year-old man from Portsmouth early on Thursday morning as part of pre-planned raids by the North East Counter Terrorism Unit.
The suspects are being interviewed by police as four properties in Bath, Leeds, London and Portsmouth continue to be searched.
“The arrests were preplanned and part of an ongoing investigation into extreme right-wing activity,” said a spokesperson for the North East Counter Terrorism Unit.
The 21-year-old was arrested on suspicion of possessing material useful to someone preparing an act of terrorism and conspiracy to inspire racial or religious hatred. The 17-year-old was arrested on suspicion of encouraging terrorism, dissemination of terrorist publications, and conspiracy to inspire racial or religious hatred.
The 18-year-old was arrested on suspicion of encouraging terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications.
Britain’s counter-terrorism chiefs have repeatedly warned against the rising threat of farright terrorism activity in the country.
Latest UK Home Office figures released in September indicated a growing threat from far-right extremism in the country, as a total of 351 arrests were made over the past year until June 2018 where terrorism-related activity was suspected, with 133 of them white and 129 recorded as Asian ethnic appearance.
“This was the first time, since the year ending June 2005, that the proportion of white people arrested has exceeded the proportion of Asian people arrested,” a Home Office statement had noted. TEHRAN: A suicide bomber killed at least two people and wounded many more outside police headquarters in the port city of Chabahar in restive southeastern Iran on Thursday, according to a revised official toll.
Chabahar lies in Sistanbaluchistan province which has long been a flashpoint, with Pakistan-based Baluchi separatists and Sunni Muslim extremists carrying out crossborder attacks targeting the Shiite authorities.
“This terrorist act led to the martyrdom of two members of the police force,” the province’s deputy governor in charge of security, Mohammad Hadi Marashi, told state television.
Chabahar city governor Rahmdel Bameri said earlier that four people were killed and many more wounded when the bomber blew up a car, but later revised the death toll to two.
“The explosion was very strong and broke the glass of many buildings close by,” Bameri told state television.
Many nearby shop owners and civilian passers-by, including women and children, were severely wounded, he added.
Chabahar lies some 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the Pakistan border and is home to a large, mainly Sunni Muslim ethnic Baluchi community which straddles the two countries.
The number of assailants was not immediately clear.
“The terrorists tried to enter Chabahar police headquarters but they were prevented by the guards and they detonated the car bomb,” Marashi said without elaborating on how many assailants took part.