Anti-terror police search more homes in UK
British police were tonight searching two properties close to where a suspected al Qaida operative was arrested in Gloucester.
Anti-terrorist branch officers moved in to examine one home in Derby Road and another in All Saints Road, close to the terrace house where Sajid Badat was arrested yesterday.
Devout Muslim Badat, 24, tonight remains in custody in London where he is being detained under the Terrorism Act.
Nothing has yet been recovered from either address, but searches were still being carried out, Gloucestershire police said.
Officers stood on guard outside both properties which were unoccupied at the time of the raids.
A “relatively small amount” of explosives were found at his house on St James Street yesterday, they said.
Scotland Yard would not comment on reports that a suicide attack on a football ground had been foiled, while police chiefs denied reports of a specific terrorist threat against Manchester United FC.
Assistant Chief Constable Dave Whatton, head of Crime Operations at Greater Manchester Police, said: “There has recently been speculation about a specific terrorist threat to football clubs and their grounds in the Greater Manchester area. This is not the case.”
Forensic experts spent the day scouring Badat’s home at 44 St James Street while his relatives stayed in a safe house.
Another fingertip search took place at a flat above the Pound Plus shop on Barton Street.
Inspector David Peake, of Gloucestershire Police, said no explosives and “nothing significant” had been found at the Barton Street address.
Police and plain clothes officers carrying bags and wearing purple rubber gloves were seen entering the flat, where a pile of unopened post lay on the mat.
Officers executed a search warrant on the property at 1am.
Badat is in custody in the capital’s Paddington Green station, where he can be held for seven days under the Terrorism Act, after being moved there last night.
In a separate operation, a 39-year-old Manchester man was arrested yesterday at an undisclosed address in the city.
Both men were detained under section 41 of the Terrorism Act “on suspicion of involvement in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism”, Scotland Yard and Greater Manchester Police confirmed.
The arrests came after Britain’s state of terrorist alert was recently increased from “significant” to “severe general” following new intelligence of an al Qaida plot.
The threat level is the second-highest under a new system introduced after the Bali bombing in October last year.
Scotland Yard have refused to comment on reports that Badat, who is a Briton of Asian descent, had links to convicted shoebomber Richard Reid.
Self-confessed al Qaida terrorist Reid tried to blow up an American Airlines Paris to Miami jet carrying 197 passengers in December 2001.
He was sentenced to 110 years plus three life sentences earlier this year.
Badat has been described by locals a bright young man with good qualifications who took his religion seriously.
