Seven Iranians arrested in British counter-terrorism probes

LONDON (Reuters) -British counter-terrorism police have arrested eight men including seven Iranians in two separate operations, officers said, in what the interior minister called some of the biggest investigations of their kind in recent years.

Five men, four of them Iranian nationals, were arrested on Saturday over a suspected plot to target specific premises, London's Metropolitan Police said on Sunday without naming the site.

The men, aged between 29 and 40, were arrested in West London and the English towns and cities of Swindon, Stockport, Rochdale and Manchester, police said. There was no information on the nationality of the fifth man.

"We are exploring various lines of enquiry to ... identify whether there may be any further risk to the public linked to this matter," Commander Dominic Murphy, who heads London police's Counter Terrorism Command, said.

Iran's embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Three Iranian nationals aged between 39 and 55 were also arrested in London on Saturday in a second operation that was not related to the first, the Metropolitan Police said.

They were detained for suspected involvement in foreign power threat activity under the National Security Act - legislation which came into force in 2023 to counter hostile states' actions in the UK, the force added.

Searches were ongoing at their addresses, the police statement read.

"These were two major operations that reflect some of the biggest counter state threat and counter terrorism operations that we have seen in recent years," interior minister Yvette Cooper told reporters.

"This reflects the complexity of the kinds of challenges to our national security that we continue to face," she said.

The arrests come at a time of intense scrutiny of suspected Iran-backed activities in Britain.

Domestic spy chief Ken McCallum saying last year that since 2022, officers had responded to 20 Tehran-backed plots that potentially posed lethal threats to British citizens and residents.

In 2023, an Austrian national was convicted of carrying out "hostile reconnaissance" against the London headquarters of Iran International, a broadcaster which is critical of Iran's government.

The following year, a British journalist of Iranian origin who worked for Iran International was stabbed in London.

The government has placed Iran on the highest tier of its foreign influence register, requiring Tehran to register everything it does to exert political influence in the UK.

(Reporting by Bipasha Dey in Bengaluru, and Michael Holden and Muvija M in London; Editing by Edmund Klamann, Toby Chopra and Andrew Heavens)