The radical Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary and nine other men were arrested on Thursday morning in London and Stoke-on-Trent by the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command on suspicion of being members of a banned organisation.
The arrests come on a day when Prime Minister David Cameron in a speech in the United Nations said the United Kingdom was ready to “play its part” in fighting the Islamic State (IS), the “evil against which the whole world must unite”.
The British Parliament has been recalled to meet on Friday and is expected to give Mr. Cameron approval to provide further muscle to the U.S.-led air bombing campaign against IS bases in Iraq.
However, officers searching 18 premises in London and one in Stoke-on-Trent said that the arrests were part of an ongoing terrorism-related inquiry and were not in response to any specific threat.
Mr. Choudary (47), who calls himself a “social activist”, is an inflammatory speaker who frequently appears on television and is an active user of social media. His hate speeches in recent times have been unapologetic in their support of the policies and practices of the IS, including the recent acts of beheading of foreign journalists and aid workers.
He founded the Islamist al-Muhajiroun, which was banned in 2010, and later helped setting up Al Ghurabaa, an organisation that was also banned.
According to the police, 11 premises in east London, one in west London, one in northwest London and five in South London are being searched.
