british police arrest seven terror suspects in rai

lIt's ok for London police to raid a mosque looking for suspected terrorists, but it's not ok for Israeli soldiers to stake out a Christian Church being used and defiled by known, not suspected, but known Muslim terrorists and murderers.

Lets hear your protests, Gaweb, Foolguy, Tophat, ncqcowboy and others. A little consistancy, perhaps?


British Police arrest seven terror suspects in raid on London mosque
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jan. 20, 2003

LONDON - Police arrested seven terror suspects early on Monday after raiding a north London mosque in an operation linked to the recent discovery of the deadly poison ricin, police said.

Eye witnesses said some 150 police officers took part in the raid on the North London Central Mosque and two neighboring houses, which began at 02:00 local time. Some officers were armed and others were carrying ladders and battering rams, and two helicopters were seen, the eye witnesses said.

Seven people were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 and taken to a central London police station, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said.
"The operation is part of ongoing and extensive inquiries by the Metropolitan Police's Anti-Terrorist Branch into alleged terrorist activity in London and elsewhere in the UK," he said.

The mosque in north London's Finsbury Park area is the base for radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri. It was not clear whether al-Masri was among the people detained.

The cleric, who lost both hands and an eye while fighting in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation, has become one of the most controversial Muslim figures in Britain.

Police said the operation was linked to a recent series of anti-terrorism raids in Britain but there was no indication that ricin was found at the mosque or in the neighboring houses.

"Evidence gathered during recent counter-terrorist investigations in London and elsewhere has uncovered links between the premises and suspected terrorist activity," the Metropolitan Police spokesman said. "Such evidence has made this operation absolutely necessary at this time."

Four North African men were charged Jan. 13 with chemical weapons and terrorism offenses in relation to the find of the deadly poison ricin in a north London apartment on Jan. 5.

Derived from the castor bean plant, ricin is one of the world's deadliest toxins and has been linked in the past to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network and Iraq.
In a second raid in the northern England city of Manchester on Jan. 15 that police said was linked to the ricin discovery in London, three North African men were arrested. One of those, Kamel Bourgass, 27, appeared in court on Friday, charged with the murder of a police officer who was stabbed during the raid.
"Although this operation is linked to arrests made in north and east London on January 5, at this stage there is nothing to suggest that chemical substances are on the premises and there is no suggestion at this stage that there is any risk to the public," the Metropolitan Police spokesman said.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens said Sunday that several terrorists linked to al-Qaida were under surveillance and that more arrests were expected.