Police arrest 11 in neo-Nazi, anti-terror crackdown in UK

LONDON: British police said they had arrested 11 men on Wednesday, including five on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts, as part of an investigation into the banned far-right group National Action.

The 11 men, aged between 22 and 35, were arrested in different parts of England and Wales and are all suspected of being members of the organisation.

"Individuals involved in proscribed organisations who support extremist ideologies bring damaging consequences to local communities," Russ Jackson, who is responsible for counter-terrorism policing in northwest England, said in a statement.

Two serving British soldiers, including one serving at a British base in Cyprus, were charged earlier this month with being members of National Action.

National Action was outlawed last December, six months after the assassination of lawmaker Jo Cox by a far-right sympathiser.

Cox, an MP from the main opposition Labour party, was shot and stabbed to death in her constituency by Thomas Mair in June 2016.

Mair shouted "Britain first!" as he killed her, and National Action later praised Mair's actions.

When she banned the organisation, Interior Minister Amber Rudd branded it as "racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic".