Six people have been arrested on suspicion of being members of the banned far-right group National Action.<\/p>\n
Five men from Cambridge, Banbury, Wolverhampton, Leicester and Stockport, and a woman from Banbury were detained by police earlier.<\/p>\n
All six are being held at a police station in the West Midlands.<\/p>\n
Police said the suspects, aged between 21 and 37, were detained under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act as part of a planned operation.<\/p>\n
They were arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism, namely on suspicion of being a member of a proscribed organisation, National Action.<\/p>\n
The six arrested people are:<\/p>\n
West Midlands Police said the arrests were intelligence-led and carried out in conjunction with a number of other counter-terrorism units across England.<\/p>\n
“There was no threat to public safety,” a force spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
A number of properties are also being searched as part of the operation.<\/p>\n
National Action was made a proscribed terrorist organisation in December 2016, the first extreme right-wing group to be outlawed in the UK.<\/p>\n
A number of alleged members of National Action have been arrested since the group was banned by the government.<\/p>\n
By Dominic Casciani, BBC home affairs correspondent<\/strong><\/p>\n National Action became the first British neo-Nazi group to be banned after Home Secretary Amber Rudd said it was promoting violence and acts of terrorism.<\/p>\n Members and supporters applauded the murder of Jo Cox MP by a white supremacist – and the group had carried out a series of small, but confrontational, demonstrations in towns and cities throughout England.<\/p>\n One of its most notorious events saw masked members – many of them very young men – gathering outside York Minster to make Hitler salutes.<\/p>\n Since it was banned, detectives have been carrying out more and more investigations into the group which, to all intents and purposes, has organised itself in a similar way to the banned al Muhajiroun network – the extremist Islamist youth movement.<\/p>\n Both have used social media to target young people, attracting them with a simplistic us-and-them message designed to make them angry.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"