WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- Police in the Britain's West Midlands this week conducted intelligence-driven raids in Birmingham, arresting seven people and reportedly disrupting an Islamic terrorist plot.
Although details of the alleged plot haven't been revealed, the action by law enforcement officials hammers home the lessons that, despite the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the war against terrorism is far from over and complacency isn't an option.
Media reports say six of the seven suspects are males between the ages of 25-32 and a female suspect whom police say failed to disclose information to authorities is 22.
The seven were rounded up in a series of raids late Sunday and early Monday.
An official police statement the seven were arrested "on suspicion of preparing or instigating an act of terror."
"The operation is in its early stages, so we are unable to go into detail at this time about the nature of the suspected offenses," Marcus Beale, the West Midlands assistant chief constable said. "However, I believe it was necessary to take action at this time in order to ensure public safety."
Unofficially, an unidentified police official told The Guardian newspaper the law enforcement operation, which was believed to have involved the MI5 intelligence agency, was "linked to international cases as much as local."
Britain has had its share of terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists in recent years. In the most prominent incident, 52 people were killed and more than 700 others were injured when Islamist suicide bombers attacked London's public transport system.
Twenty-four people were arrested in 2006 for involvement in a plot to bomb trans-Atlantic airliner. Eight were eventually put on trial and three were sent to prison.
More recently, authorities disrupted an alleged plot to kidnap a British soldier and behead him. And in December, police charged nine people of Bangladeshi origin who allegedly were casing targets for possible attack.
Birmingham, Britain's second-largest city, has a sizable population of South Asian descent, either immigrants or British-born.
British authorities, like their U.S. counterparts, worry about Islamist radicalization in their Muslim communities as al-Qaida broadens its base of lone wolf operatives.
"They attract people for training, they have sections dedicated to overseas operations, they radicalize and recruit," British Home Secretary Theresa May said during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, earlier this month.
"And even as the capability of the al-Qaida leadership has reduced, other threats have emerged which, in the U.K., affect us directly.
"From very soon after 9/11 -- and certainly by 2005 -- we in the U.K. realized that terrorist groups had become embedded into the fabric of our society and in particular our cities," she said.
Citing continuing investigations, authorities in Birmingham have declined to give additional information about those arrested this week and the intelligence that prompted the action.
