London – British anti -terrorism officers arrested several Iranian men for an alleged plot to attack an un specified objective in London, the metropolitan police force said on Sunday.
Police said five men between 29 and 46 were arrested on Saturday in several parts of England suspected of preparing a terrorist act.
Four are Iranian citizens and the nationality of the fifth is still being established.
Three other Iranian men were arrested in London under suspicion of a national security crime as part of a separate investigation, police said.
All suspects are being interrogated in police stations and have not been accused.
Police said they were not identifying the suspicious objective of the alleged plot “for operational reasons.”
Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the command against force terrorism, said the police are still working to establish a reason “as well as identify if there may be any additional risk for the public.”
The Secretary of the Interior, Yvette Cooper, said that arrests were “serious events that demonstrate the continuous requirement of adapting our response to national security threats.
“The government continues to work with the police and intelligence agencies to support all the action and security evaluations that are needed to keep the country safe,” he said.
In October, the Chief of Britain MI5 National Security ServiceKen McCallum said that his agents and the police have approached 20 potentially lethal “plots backed by Iran since 2022, most of the Iranians in the United Kingdom who oppose the authorities of the country.
