Liverpool Echo : Liverpool Terror Alerts: Police foil major bomb plot

Liverpool Terror Alerts: Police foil major bomb plot

by Ben Rossington, Liverpool Echo | April 9, 2009

POLICE believe they have thwarted a major plan to detonate a bomb on British soil after a string of anti-terror arrests.

As details of the dramatic swoop at Liverpool John Moores University emerged today the ECHO has learned the arrests are both “significant and important”.

The swoop saw 12 men – aged from their mid-to-late teens to their early 40s – picked up in a coordinated operation yesterday afternoon.

Five men were arrested in Liverpool - one on the John Moores campus, three in a house in Toxteth and one at a house in Edge Hill.

They were being quizzed today alongside others picked up by the North West Counter-Terrorism Unit in Manchester and Lancashire.

Senior detectives today told the ECHO Operation Pathway had foiled a major terrorist plot.

One officer said: “These are the most significant arrests for some time.

“There was information which led us to believe that these men were planning something major.

“It is not clear when or where they would strike. But they were collecting material for a large explosion.”

Whitehall security experts said that there was no indication of threats to specific targets in and around Liverpool such as the Mersey tunnels.

They pointed out the 7/7 London suicide bombers travelled from Bradford to carry out their murderous attacks.

The intelligence supplied came from both MI5 and police anti-terror officers.

Secret service agents are thought to have been watching and monitoring those arrested for some time.

But the operation was brought forward after the country’s top terror cop Bob Quick who quit today after leaving top secret documents on show in front of photographers as he walked into Downing Street yesterday.

Another senior police source told the ECHO: “These are being seen as significant and important arrests.

“Obviously they were brought forward a bit but they would have happened sooner rather than later anyway.”

Staff at JMU were given 10 minutes warning that armed police would be coming on to campus.

They warned everyone in the public buildings to stay away from windows and glass, sparking fears of a bomb.

Police stormed The Aldham Roberts Library, in Maryland Street, at around 5pm.

Onlookers screamed in horror as officers chased a man close to the entrance of the building.

Up to 200 students were in the building, off Hardman Street, when the drama unfolded.

The suspect is believed to have been taken out with a Taser and kept face down on the floor for 30 minutes by an officer with a machine gun pointed at his head.

Forensic teams arrived at the scene and searched the library to see if any suspicious packages of objects had been discarded or hidden.

Angela Bradley, 23, a tourism and leisure management student, was walking towards the library with friends when an unmarked police car screamed to a halt in front of her.

She said: “Four fellas with guns jumped out of a black car and left all the doors open and ran in.

“They started shouting stay the f*** down.

“Everyone got moved out and we weren’t allowed to go near them.”

A JMU spokeswoman confirmed the man arrested was a current student.

Other swoops took place in Cedar Grove, Toxteth, and Earle Road, Edge Hill.

Officers are now searching the suspects' homes along with a third address in Highgate Street, also Edge Hill.

Today shops and a flat remained cordoned off on Earle Road.

Police burst into a flat above Saleh off licence and close to St Hugh's Catholic Primary School, which is closed for the Easter break.

Locals told how they were armed with shields and smashed down the door to the flat before racing upstairs to apprehend a suspect.

A man sitting in a silver-coloured car outside was also apprehended during the same raid.

Neighbours said that new people had moved into the flat just a few days earlier.

They said that nothing was known of their identity, although they appeared to be in their 20's.

They said a group of Polish men previously lived at the address.