Police thwart Islamist terror plot with raids on three homes
ARMED police have foiled an lslamist lockdown terror plot after carrying out raids on addresses in east London and Leicester.
Four men, aged between 17 and 32, were arrested after police stormed three homes in coordinated raids yesterday afternoon.
Residents in the Goodhayes Park area of Ilford were alerted when a series of loud flash grenades were detonated by police as they entered a flat in Green Lane. At least a dozen loud bangs were heard, which locals thought were gunshots, but Scotland Yard said no shots had been fired.
A 27-year-old man who was inside the property was bitten by a police dog.
Eoin Moylan, 22, who witnessed the Green Lane raid, told the Barking and Dagenham Post: “I heard glass breaking and a woman screaming then a loud bang. I thought fireworks had gone wrong. I saw police in uniform.”
Whitehall sources said they had thwarted the suspected jihadist plot after an “intelligence led” investigation.
A spokesman for the London Ambulance Service said paramedics were called at 1.28pm to the home in Green Lane. Elsewhere, a teenager and a 31-year-old man were detained at a property in another part of east London and a 32-year-old was arrested at an address in Leicestershire. The group were all held on suspicion of being concerned in preparing a terror attack.
Details of the intended target were not revealed, but sources confirmed it was an Islamist plot which had been planned during lockdown. The plot was not thought to involve explosives, but the operation was ordered amid fears that the group was ready to act.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “The arrests in east London were carried out with the support of armed officers. No shots were fired, although one of the men was bitten on the foot by a police dog during the course of his arrest and has been taken to hospital.
“Officers from East Midlands Counter Terrorism Policing and Leicestershire Police also assisted in the arrest in Leicestershire. No armed officers were present for that arrest.
♦ A probationary Metropolitan Police officer, aged 21, has been charged with being a member of the far-right terrorist group National Action. Benjamin Hannam, of north London, was charged with five offences including two counts of false representation by stating he had not been a member of “an organisation similar to the BNP” on his police application form. He was also charged with possession of an indecent child image. He will appear before Westminster magistrates on Aug 6.