ARAB-EUROPEAN RELATIONS - Dec. 18 - UK Police Arrests 7 In Terror Raids.

Seven suspected Al Qaida members - men in their early thirties, all of North African origin - are arrested in early morning raids by anti-terror police squads on houses in London and Edinburgh, the UK. The seven were questioned at an undisclosed place in Scotland under the Terrorism Act of 2000, a law that permits the detention of people suspected of plotting a terrorist act. The BBC, citing security sources, said the men were accused of being involved in fund-raising and logistical support, and they were suspected of being loosely connected to a network associated with Al Qaida. The British authorities said there was no evidence that Scotland was the target of a plot, but they would not give the same assurances about the rest of Britain. Scotland Yard issued a warning on Dec. 16 for residents of London to be extra vigilant because of reports of possible acts of violence, either from Al Qaida connected groups or dissident Irish republicans. (The Dec. 18 arrests followed a sweep by French police against suspected Islamic militant groups in a Paris suburb on Dec. 17 that resulted in the arrests of three men and a woman, also from North Africa, on charges of planning terror acts. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said chemicals, an anti-contamination suit, forged documents, a computer and large quantities of dollars and euros had been seized. French chemists confirmed that one of two chemicals seized in the home of the four suspected Islamic militants was a potentially explosive substance, identified as iron perchloride).