BREAKING: Five held by anti-terror police in Birmingham and at Gatwick

Breaking news in the UK right now.

Limited information as it stands, this has broken in the last few minutes.

Five held by anti-terror police in Birmingham and at Gatwick

No further information is available yet, but wanted to get this on here in case it develops into something more throughout the day.

For those who might not know, Birmingham is a major city in central England, Gatwick is a major airport serving London and the South of the country.

There is no indication whether this means Birmingham Airport, or whether the arrests were made in the city itself. There is no confusion over the use of Gatwick though, this refers to the airport.

While this could be nothing more than individuals arrested on suspicion of flying out to a terrorist organization (as has happened before) there is also a possibility that this could have been an attack thwarted.

Four people - three men aged 26, 40 and 59 and a 29-year-old woman - were arrested in Birmingham on Thursday night. A 26-year-old man was arrested at Gatwick in the early hours of Friday.

BBC Link

It's important to note that this happened during the night and is only now being reported, this would suggest an element of media control, likely for security purposes, being employed over these arrests.

Please keep this thread limited to this event - for your opinions of Islam please use one of the many other threads. Likewise, please do not respond to those trying to derail this thread with posts about Islam.

EDITED TO UPDATE:

Police worked with MI5 and Belgian and French authorities in an operation "to address any associated threat to the UK following the attacks in Europe". They said there was no risk to the public at any time and they had no information to suggest an attack in the UK was being planned.

Further updates will be in-thread.

Not much news about this just yet.. Probably just a security measure.. If they were a suspected threat I'm sure they wouldn't have even made it to an airport. Maybe passport control flagged something up.
The ages seem odd to me 26, 40 and 59.. Could be a family travelling together and one of them is in the list.?

a reply to: Rocker2013
The update comment about "threats to the UK" leads me to think "flying in" rather than "flying out".
But I suppose we will get more specific details when they choose to release it.

To be honest we've been lucky to get away with no serious terrorist incident in the uk for over a decade. You have to give some credit to our security services for doing their job so well.

originally posted by: Rocker2013
there is also a possibility that this could have been an attack thwarted.

If it is I hope they got all of them. Could be more out there on the plan right now

originally posted by: woodwardjnr
To be honest we've been lucky to get away with no serious terrorist incident in the uk for over a decade. You have to give some credit to our security services for doing their job so well.

Absolutely.
We've managed to prevent numerous attacks in this country and it's a credit to our security services that nothing has managed to get through for so long. Given that we have a continued threat from religious extremists, the far-right and remnants of the IRA, they're doing remarkably well.

It's also important to note, however, that they've been doing extremely well without having all the snooping freedoms they've been insisting are "vital" for several years now. Theresa May has been repeatedly claiming that they need access to all our internet records, phone calls, emails, text messages... they've been doing a stellar job without that mass data gathering so far.

Update:

All five are from Birmingham and are being held in the West Midlands, police said. Police are also searching a number of properties in the city as part of the investigation. Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale, who leads on counter-terrorism for the force, said the operation was part of an "extensive investigation", and the arrests were "pre-planned and intelligence-led".

It seems that these are British nationals living in the UK, flagged as being associated to, or somehow linked with, events happening in mainland Europe. Particularly Belgium.

Most of these arrests happened in Birmingham on Thursday night, with one arrest happening at Gatwick this morning. I would assume (if that's reasonable to do) that they might be related, that one was flying into the country and arrested on arrival at Gatwick.

It's possible they knew from intelligence that this individual was coming back to the UK, so they waited for him to board the plane before arresting his associates, then waited for him to arrive at Gatwick.

a reply to: woodwardjnr

To be honest we've been lucky to get away with no serious terrorist incident in the uk for over a decade. You have to give some credit to our security services for doing their job so well.

Indeed.

I'm naturally suspicious of the powers that have been granted the security services, however, if it prevents terrorist attacks and leads to arrests like these then you've got to see their benefits.

A fine line to be sure and one that needs constant monitoring.

But it really does need repeating; our security services seem second to none when it comes to carrying out these sort of operations prior to any attack.

I suspect we'll soon see the predictable claims of 'false flag' etc from the usual suspects.

a reply to: Rocker2013

These neighborhoods will turn out like gang neighborhoods in the US where people don't tell the police to protect themselves or the suspect.

Nearly an impossible mission to rid this type of behavior but i applaud the effort that won't last long, until the next attack

Another little update, but so far still little about what this all actually means:

These were the first arrests in the UK directly connected with the investigation into the attacks in Brussels in March and Paris last November, he said.

So we have confirmation that these arrests are connected to the events in Paris and Brussels.

Police said all those arrested are being held in the West Midlands on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

Seems like a boilerplate statement covering all kinds of things from raising funds to providing material support. It's hard to know from this statement whether these individuals were directly linked or simply suspected of some tenuous involvement in what happened in Paris and Brussels.

The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner said Whitehall officials described the operation as "significant".

To be honest, this sounds like nothing more than someone calling up a receptionist and them picking a word that could mean anything. Significant could mean that the operation itself was considerable, or that those arrested were a large part of the attacks.

originally posted by: JDmOKI
a reply to: Rocker2013

These neighborhoods will turn out like gang neighborhoods in the US where people don't tell the police to protect themselves or the suspect.

Nearly an impossible mission to rid this type of behavior but i applaud the effort that won't last long, until the next attack

What "neighbourhoods"?

Birmingham is a major city. Gatwick is an AIRPORT.

I would advise you to look a little more into this story before attempting to turn this into a race/religion thing. If that's your intention, please move on to one of the many other ignorant threads on such a topic, this is a discussion about these arrests and the implications/meaning of them.

Must be something to it for the news to get out.
I'd guess a lot of people get arrested by anti terror cops and we don't hear a thing.

a reply to: Rocker2013

I didn't mention race

neigh·bor·hood
ˈnābərˌho͝od/Submit
noun
a district, especially one forming a community within a town or city

I assume the terrorist lived in the Airport?

a reply to: Rocker2013

If they are connected to the attacks in Brussels they are Islamic, stop it ! to even think otherwise is just heh insert T&C violation...

originally posted by: TechniXcality
a reply to: Rocker2013

If they are connected to the attacks in Brussels they are Islamic, stop it ! to even think otherwise is just heh insert T&C violation...

I'm not going to play the guessing game on Race, nationality (although all appear to live in Birmingham so that may be a given) or religion. As Rocker pointed out, this isn't really a thread about that.

I do want to point out though that it's not unusual for one terrorist group to way collaborate in some way with another. It's a given that the IRA was in collusion with various other terrorist groups from around the world in at least the '70's and '80's with relation to funding, training and weapon smuggling.

a reply to: Rocker2013

they've been doing a stellar job without that mass data gathering so far.

That you know of. Do you really think MI5 is not going to use anything at their disposal to catch these guys, legal or not? Our CIA isn't supposed to, but........I'd lay money on them still doing it. The only reason the politicians are pushing for permission, is that they came come out in the open with it. It doesn't mean they're not doing it. After all the things they've done, how can you possibly believe them on this one thing?

originally posted by: DAVID64
a reply to: Rocker2013

they've been doing a stellar job without that mass data gathering so far.

That you know of. Do you really think MI5 is not going to use anything at their disposal to catch these guys, legal or not? Our CIA isn't supposed to, but........I'd lay money on them still doing it. The only reason the politicians are pushing for permission, is that they came come out in the open with it. It doesn't mean they're not doing it. After all the things they've done, how can you possibly believe them on this one thing?

I'm sceptical of course, I always am. In most instances I assume that if they can do something they probably are, unless there is a law directly denying them that ability.

The difference is that I require proof for the claims people make. We've had proof that they have used mass data harvesting before, so that goes without saying.

But, to suggest that they are already using new methods they want to make legal, I need proof of it before I will just accept that it's happening.

I know a lot of people on ATS love to simply believe accusations and assumptions, but a logical person would state that there needs to be EVIDENCE for such a claim.

Get the evidence and I will believe it. If the evidence isn't there, there's nothing to believe other than unfounded suspicion.

Having said all of that, I would echo what Freeborn says above, a balance has to be made between the right to privacy and the powers we afford extremely powerful organizations and governments. So far, I have seen no reason to justify giving up the right to privacy our government wants us to give up for the benefit of maybe, perhaps, one day stopping one attack by a pathetically ineffectual terrorist who somehow doesn't know how to use a TOR network or use a simple book code to transmit information.

Listening in on millions of innocent people will not get us any closer to stopping the needle in that haystack. If anything it would engulf our agencies in a mess of false information and make attacks MORE LIKELY. It would become FAR EASIER for a terrorist organization to totally distract any agency with just 50 false leads.

What we need to be investing our resource into is not watching everyone 24/7, but picking out actual targets and following those leads to other cells. This shotgun approach they want to create will do nothing but make our agencies more ineffectual, while making them more expensive, while eroding our collective rights and while making it ten times easier for a group to distract an agency from the actual plan with false information seeded around the world.

That's why I would support limited expansion of powers, it should be limited to warrants for using all required means to monitor specific targets of interest for a specific time.

originally posted by: woodwardjnr
To be honest we've been lucky to get away with no serious terrorist incident in the uk for over a decade. You have to give some credit to our security services for doing their job so well.

What, apart from the Glasgow Airport Attack and the killing of Lee Rigby?

originally posted by: Rocker2013

originally posted by: JDmOKI
a reply to: Rocker2013

These neighborhoods will turn out like gang neighborhoods in the US where people don't tell the police to protect themselves or the suspect.

Nearly an impossible mission to rid this type of behavior but i applaud the effort that won't last long, until the next attack

What "neighbourhoods"?

Birmingham is a major city. Gatwick is an AIRPORT.

I would advise you to look a little more into this story before attempting to turn this into a race/religion thing. If that's your intention, please move on to one of the many other ignorant threads on such a topic, this is a discussion about these arrests and the implications/meaning of them.

It's one of the things Americans don't get about us. They can't grasp that our cities are nothing like their hellholes.

a reply to: Whodathunkdatcheese

What do you mean?