Special Report: Major UK air terror plot thwarted

    LONDON, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- Fourteen people were arrested by London police late Friday and early Saturday in anti-terror raids in south and east London.

    Scotland Yard said the arrests were not linked to the alleged trans-Atlantic airliners bomb plot at Heathrow Airport last month or the July 5 underground attacks last year.

    Two people were held in east London, in what Scotland Yard described as a pre-planned, intelligence-led operation, and another 12 were arrested at a restaurant in south London on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

    "The arrests in south and east London follow many months of surveillance and investigation in a joint operation involving the Anti-Terrorist Branch, Special Branch and the Security Service," a Scotland Yard spokesman said

    A spokeswoman for Home Secretary John Reid said he had been "kept fully informed of the developments about the counter-terror operation."

    Thousands of British Muslims are being watched by police and the MI5 domestic intelligence service under suspicion of possible terrorist involvement, said Peter Clarke, the head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch, according to The Daily Telegraph on Saturday's edition.

    They were being looked at in the belief that they might be involved directly or indirectly in supporting terrorism, he said. Enditem