Detectives continued to question five suspected terrorists on Saturday, feared to be members of a UK arm of the cell behind the atrocities in Paris and Brussels.
Three men and a woman were arrested in Birmingham on Thursday, and counter-terrorism police detained a fifth suspect at London’s Gatwick airport. He was reportedly returning from Marrakech in Morocco on an easyJet flight.
At least two members of the terror cell behind the massacres in Paris in November and Brussels last month, which is linked to Islamic State, are believed to have travelled to Birmingham last year.
It has been reported that evidence extracted from the mobile phone of one of the attackers – Mohamed Abrini, the “man in the hat” arrested in Brussels last week – led to the arrests in England.
The Associated Press quoted a security source as saying Abrini, who is of Moroccan descent, had made several trips to Birmingham and that the five British suspects had been under surveillance since the attacks in Paris.
All five were detained on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts, and West Midlands police said the arrests followed an investigation involving Belgian and French authorities. Police said there was no information to suggest an attack in the UK was being planned.
One of the raids in Birmingham was at the house of a 40-year-old taxi driver in the Small Heath area of the city. During the search of the property a “suspicious substance” was found, police said, but there was “no immediate danger”.
Three people – two men aged 26 and 59, and a 29-year-old woman – were arrested separately in Birmingham and a 26-year-old man at Gatwick.
Marcus Beale, the assistant chief constable who leads on counter-terrorism for the West Midlands force, said: “This action forms part of an extensive investigation by West Midlands counter-terrorism unit, together with the wider counter-terrorism network, MI5 and international partners including Belgian and French authorities to address any associated threat to the UK following the attacks in Europe.”
Counter-terrorism officials across Europe have been investigating the cell behind the Paris attacks, which plunged France into a state of emergency. According to Belgian and French investigators, the same cell was behind the bombings in Brussels last month.
Abrini, 31, a Belgian national, fled Brussels airport after his two alleged accomplices blew themselves up. He had been on Europe’s most wanted list since being identified as one of two suspects seen on CCTV travelling in a car two days before the Paris attacks in November.
He is believed to have visited Birmingham in July 2015. Investigators believe he took photos of landmarks in the area, including a football stadium.
The Paris attack was led by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a senior Islamic State commander, also of Moroccan descent, who died after the atrocity in a shootout with French forces.
A phone was found in his possession, on which were pictures of Birmingham and London taken months before the attacks in the French capital, and images taken during his visit to fellow jihadis. There has been no official comment on what is thought to have been the reason for the visit.
Four days before the Brussels attacks, Salah Abdeslam, a prime suspect
in the Paris attacks and a childhood friend of Abrini’s, was arrested in Brussels.
Abrini has reportedly told investigators that Abdeslam’s arrest prompted the extremists to move plans forward for the follow-up attack, which came four days after at Brussels airport and a metro station in the city.
