British police arrest five men near nuclear plant

LONDON — British police arrested five men under anti-terrorism legislation close to a nuclear plant, but said Tuesday the case appeared to be unconnected to the death of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

Counter-terror detectives have raided a string of houses after five men were arrested close to the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria.

They were arrested under a provision of Britain’s terrorism laws that allows suspects to be questioned without charge, police said, and have now been handed over to the specialist North West Counter Terrorism Unit in Manchester.

The men were detained under section 41 of the Terrorism Act after a stop check on a vehicle.

The five, all in their 20s and from London, were held overnight at a police station in Carlisle.

The investigation is being led by counter-terrorism officers in Manchester.

A police source said the men appeared to be "acting suspiciously near the perimeter of Sellafield" but refused to disclose further details.

Britain is on high alert because of fears of possible Al-Qaeda revenge attacks after US special forces killed bin Laden in a raid in Pakistan overnight Sunday.

But she did say that there is “no link at this stage” to the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, an event which prompted Islamic extremists to warn that Britain will be a target for retaliatory attacks. British authorities have told the public to be alert on public transportation and in other venues.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said the investigation was in its early stages and no further information would be released yet.

The location and timing of the incident, which came hours after news broke that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US special forces, is likely to cause concern.

The closely-guarded site is one of few major employers in the region, providing some 10,000 jobs in the storage and reprocessing of nuclear waste.

Established in the 1940s, it once housed the world’s first commercial nuclear power station which operated from 1956 to 2003. It was the scene of Britain’s worst nuclear disaster in 1957 when the core of a reactor caught fire, releasing radioactive contamination.