ARMS FOUND IN MOSQUE TERROR RAID: And, surprise, a lot of Algerians are involved:
One of the three was said to be a “hugely significant figure” in the ricin poison plot uncovered two weeks ago. His arrest is said to be one of the most important made since police began tracking down members of the ricin network.
Police also removed computer equipment. M15 is reported to have asked the GCHQ listening station at Cheltenham to intercept thousands of coded e-mails sent and received by the mosque.
The raid, codenamed Operation Mermant, was mounted after police analysed material seized during a series of arrests following the discovery of the makeshift laboratory in North London. Senior officers now suspect that they have uncovered a major supply base for Islamic terrorists.
The mosque has been a focal point for Islamic fundamentalism for more than six years under the influence of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the one-armed, one-eyed Egyptian-born cleric.
A lot of people have wondered why the Brits haven’t shut Hamza down. I suspect it’s because they wanted to see who he was associating with.
UPDATE: Charles Murtaugh emails that this headline is misleading, since the arms found were pretty puny (by American standards, anyway), and the big find was lots of forged documents, etc. He’s right — but that’s the Times’ headline, not mine. Guess I should have used my own, which would have been “Another Algerian Connection,” or some such.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Jim Miller has more on the subject.