March 30, 2004

Here's Al-Reuters:
Explosive Ingredients Found in UK Terror Raids

British anti-terror police seized a large amount of explosive materials and arrested eight men in raids across London and southeast England on Tuesday.

Peter Clarke, head of London's Metropolitan police anti-terror branch, told a news conference more than half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which can be used in the manufacture of explosives, was recovered in west London.

"Part of the investigation will focus on the purchase, storage and intended use of that material," Clarke said.

An anti-terror source said the ammonium nitrate was similar to explosive materials used in bombings in Turkey and Saudi Arabia in recent months. The source also said it was enough to launch an attack on the same scale as the huge 1996 bombing of Canary Wharf in London's financial district.

Clarke said the eight men, all British and aged between 17 and 32, were arrested during a series of 24 raids carried out under the Terrorism Act 2000 by 700 officers from five police forces.

He stressed the operation was not linked to investigations into the coordinated train bombings in Madrid on March 11, which killed nearly 200 people.
The Telegraph's version reveals even more details about the raids:
Eight held as police seize explosives

[...]
Peter Clarke, Scotland Yard's deputy assistant commissioner, said detectives carried out 24 raids across London and the Home Counties.

Two men were arrested in Uxbridge, one in Ilford, one in Horley, one in Slough and three in Crawley. All the suspects are believed to be Muslims and British citizens of Pakistani descent. They are now being interviewed by anti-terrorist detectives.

Police found the fertiliser at a house in Hanwell, west London. The find would have been enough to cause an explosion the size of the blast which rocked Manchester in 1996 when the IRA detonated a truck filled with explosives near a shopping centre.

Ammonium nitrate fertiliser was recently used by terrorists in bombings against British targets in Turkey and the bombing of a western residential compound in Saudi Arabia.

It was also used in the Oklahoma bombing in 1995, is believed to have been used by al-Qa'eda in the attack on the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998, and was the major ingredient in the biggest of the bombs used by Islamic terrorists in Bali which killed 202 people in 2002.
[So, would we be safe in surmising that the British police will find a copy of the AQ bombmaking manual, too?--Jen]
[...]
"We know the overwhelming majority of the Muslim community are law-abiding and completely reject all forms of violence," he said.
[From your mouth to Allah's ear, Peter Clarke...]

Excellent work, chaps!
Looks as if Britain has not only adopted a "get tough" policy about homeland terrorists, but dodged a huge bullet by launching the raids!
Britons, tending to be more Liberal and "touchy feely" are taking a more sensitive and huggy attitude to their Muslims, which is fine because they have many more than the U.S. and tend to take the Old School noblesse oblige approach by default, but they'll soon find that it doesn't take many radical, jihad-bent Muslims to stage a big, bad attack.
Glad they caught these evildoers before they pulled off their big boom!