Local police said a stop check on a vehicle by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary on Monday at 4.32pm local time led to the arrests of the men, who are in their 20s and all from London. The BBC reported they were of Bangladeshi origin.
Sky News sources suggested the officers became suspicious after seeing the men filming or photographing around the plant.
British anti-terrorism police were now investigating, Cumbria police said.
The men were taken into custody overnight in Carlisle and were being transferred to Manchester. Under the terms of section 41 of the UK's Terrorism Act they can be held on suspicion of terrorist offenses for 48 hours without charge.
The arrests came just hours after news of the death of al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden, which led to warnings from the Prime Minister David Cameron for the British public to remain vigilant to the risk of reprisals.
However police said for the moment they were "not aware of any connection to recent events in Pakistan".
The Sellafield plant, which last year completed the construction of a bunker to store 100 tonnes of raw plutonium, has been the subject of a recent security review ordered by UK government ministers.
The facility holds enough plutonium to build thousands of nuclear bombs, which terror experts believe make it an even greater target for a potential extremist attack.
The review of all of Britain's nuclear facilities came after the discovery of security weaknesses at the giant Sellafield reprocessing site. Exact details were not disclosed but security sources denied there had been any breach at Sellafield by intruders.
An east London al-Qa'ida cell that was foiled in a 2006 plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in mid-flight, also had in its possession an alternative target list of nuclear power stations, oil and gas terminals and undersea pipelines.
No comments :
Post a Comment