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Counter-terror police arrest four men on suspicion of planning attack over Christmas period | |
(about 11 hours later) | |
Police have raided five homes as part of an anti-terror operation to foil a suspected Christmas terror plot. | |
Loud bangs were heard as an army bomb squad was deployed following a raid in Chesterfield and there were also operations by counter-terror officers in three parts of Sheffield. | |
Three men aged 22, 36 and 41 were detained at different addresses in Sheffield and a 31-year-old was held in Chesterfield. | |
The Independent understands the four men are suspected of preparing for an imminent terror attack, which would be the 10th thwarted by security services so far this year. | |
The unnamed men have been taken to a police station for questioning. | |
They were all arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. | |
“The arrests were intelligence-led and preplanned as part of an ongoing investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing North East,” a spokesperson said. | |
“Three properties in Sheffield and one in Chesterfield are currently being searched in connection with these arrests.” | |
Police asked local people to “remain alert but not alarmed” as operations continued. | |
An area of Chesterfield was sealed off for much of Tuesday as an Army bomb disposal team worked with large numbers of police behind a cordon. | |
Local resident Simon Fox said: “We have seen Army, police from all over, we have seen a couple of packages being removed by the bomb disposal unit. You just don’t expect this to happen in such a small town.” | |
A woman who lives opposite the property that was raided said she and her neighbours were evacuated by armed police. | |
“It’s a Syrian family who lives there, they didn’t speak much,” she added. “[The man arrested] definitely had children, he had a beard, and he dressed trendy. | |
“He had two little kids, one was in a pushchair. His wife had a headscarf, they kept themselves to themselves, really.“ | |
Meanwhile in the Meersbrook area of Sheffield, residents said they were woken by police blowing open the door of a run-down terraced house. | |
Joan Miller, 63, said she was woken by a “very loud bang” that shook her home at around 5.30am, adding: ”All sorts of different people have been living there.“ | |
A few miles further north, in the Burngreave district, a mosque and community centre was sealed off by 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. | |
It came after the director of MI5 confirmed that nine terror plots have been foiled since the Westminster attack in March. | |
Andrew Parker described the pace of the threat as “unrelenting” after revealing that 3,000 of the highest risk subjects are being monitored, alongside a wider pool of 20,000 others who have previously appeared on security services’ radar. | |
Terror attacks have left 36 victims dead and hundreds injured in the UK this year, with the national threat level remaining at severe. | |
Officials have warned the risk from both Isis, other Islamists and far-right extremists is growing amid a record number of referrals to the anti-terror Prevent programme. | |
The Government is currently drawing up a new counter-terror strategy due for release early next year. |