Police are still questioning five men over an alleged terror plot in the UK. The group includes four Iranian nationals, authorities confirmed. According to the Metropolitan Police, the arrests targeted an alleged plan to “target a specific premises.”
The “threat to national security” appeared repeatedly as officers updated the public. Arrests took place in Swindon, west London, Stockport, Rochdale, and Manchester. One of the suspects’ age and nationality has not been released yet.
Armed police arrested the men early Saturday morning. Footage showed officers pulling a man from a Rochdale house. Another man was dragged through a Swindon street with plastic bags over his arms. An eyewitness said plainclothes officers waited inside a café. When the suspect left, they followed him outside and “jumped on him” near a Costa coffee shop.
The affected site was informed and is receiving support from police. Authorities have not named the location.
Separately, police arrested three other Iranian men in north-west and west London. These men, aged 39, 44, and 55, face charges under section 27 of the National Security Act. This section allows arrest without a warrant if someone is suspected of “foreign power threat activity.”
Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, clarified that the two investigations remain unconnected. Still, he described the combined operations as “certainly significant” and rare in scale.
Last year, MI5 reported handling 20 Iran-backed plots since January 2022. Director General Sir Ken McCallum called these efforts a threat to national security and warned they pose “potentially lethal” risks to British citizens and residents.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called the latest operations among the most significant seen in recent years.
Experts have pushed for the UK to officially list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a proscribed terrorist group. Nick Aldworth, a former national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing, said this would tighten border controls and impose severe penalties on supporters. However, he warned it can be complex when proscribed organizations are part of a foreign state. He also said it remains “unclear” how much support the group has inside the UK.
Authorities continue stressing that these plots represent an ongoing threat to national security and require aggressive response measures.
For more political updates, visit London Pulse News.
