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BIRMINGHAM - Police in Birmingham arrested nine people in a major security swoop today which a defence source said involved a plot to kidnap and possibly kill a Muslim British soldier.
Detectives said eight suspected conspirators were arrested in dawn raids on "suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism". A ninth suspect was arrested later on a nearby motorway.
Uniformed officers searched and sealed off twelve addresses in Birmingham, one of the most ethnically diverse cities with a large Muslim population.
"This remains a dynamic, fluid operation and it is by no means finished," said Assistant Chief Constable David Shaw of West Midlands police. "We are literally right at the foothills of what is a very, very major investigation for us."
Britain has been on its second highest alert level since four Britons killed 52 people on London's transport system in July 2005 in Western Europe's first Islamist suicide bombings.
Security experts said the suspected plot was a departure from the mass-fatality attacks on transport networks and showed Britain was on the frontline of al Qaeda-style attacks.
"It certainly seems to confirm Britain is particularly vulnerable to al Qaeda-style attacks because of the historic links to Pakistan and the Pakistani community here," said Shane Brighton, a terrorism expert at London think-tank Chatham House.
"The suggestion is that there is a higher level of risk in the UK from those Pakistani-linked groups than there is elsewhere in Europe. We may well be on the forefront of this."
'Iraq-style execution'
Irate residents milled at the end of a cordoned off road in a run-down neighbourhood where one of the suspects was arrested. They said the police were targeting their community.
"It's become a bit of joke. It's just becoming a bit of a habit. Every other day, there's an arrest and then they release him," said one man who gave his name as Abdullah.
Media reports, citing unnamed sources, said police and domestic spy service MI5 had stopped a major terrorist plot in the latter stages of planning, or near fruition.
Sky TV quoted sources as saying the intent was to mimic the abductions and beheadings of Westerners carried out by militants in Iraq and post a video of the killing on the internet.
Such a murder would be similar to the fate of Briton Ken Bigley, who was kidnapped and later beheaded by al Qaeda's then leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2004.
A defence source confirmed to Reuters the suspected target was a Muslim serving in the British military. A police source said the suspected plot would not have caused mass casualties, but would have involved a new terrorism tactic.
There was no official confirmation of the reports.
"This operation is a reminder of the real and serious nature of the terrorist threat we face," the Home Office said.
Last year the head of MI5 said about 30 terrorism plots were being worked on and agents were monitoring some 1,600 suspects.
That figure has increased rapidly since July 7, 2005, when London suffered its worst peacetime attack with the four British suicide bombers blowing themselves up on the transport network.
In August last year, detectives said they had foiled a suspected plot to blow up trans-atlantic airliners bound for the United States using liquid explosives.
- REUTERS
