Police given extra time over Cardiff terror raid suspect

Police vehicles in Grangetown on Thursday, but it has not been confirmed if they were connected to the arrests

Police have been given more time to question a 19-year-old man under the Terrorism Act 2000 following raids in Cardiff and Barry.

Officers from the North East Counter Terrorism Unit and the Wales Extremism and Counter Terrorism Unit (WECTU) executed search warrants on Thursday.

Five men, aged 19-32, were held under section 12, banning the support of proscribed organisations.

Four of those men have been released on bail.

The 19-year-old has also been arrested for a further offence under the Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006.

Two of the arrested men have been named as Rofi Islam and Sajid Idris.

WECTU said the investigation, executing six search warrants, "does not concern any immediate threat to public safety".

Thursday's arrests were not linked to two men charged with offences on Wednesday.

Police said the arrests were linked to the Grangetown area of Cardiff and were part of a wider counter-terrorism investigation in Wales, but are not linked to brothers Aseel and Nasser Muthana who went to fight with IS in Syria.

The raids in Grangetown were within a few streets of each other. Witnesses described how a number of police vehicles descended on the area.

South Wales Police Assistant Chief Constable Nikki Holland denied Cardiff was a hotbed of terrorism.

She said the Muthana brothers and Reyaad Khan had become poster boys in the UK for IS but said police were determined to tackle radicalisation.