Abu Abdullah, an associate of Abu Hamza, the jailed hook-handed cleric, boasted in an interview last week how he would “love” to kill British troops in Afghanistan and warned of future terrorist attacks in Britain.

The raid on his house formed part of a long-term operation by Scotland Yard and MI5 targeting suspects allegedly involved in the recruitment and grooming of young British Muslims for martyrdom operations abroad and possibly in the UK.

Forensic experts searched Abdullah’s terraced home in Bromley, south London, while police officers stood guard outside.

He is reported to be one of the 14 men arrested in a series of co-ordinated raids late on Friday night and in the early hours of yesterday.

Several suspects were seized by up to 60 armed police in a halal Chinese restaurant in Borough, south London, on Friday evening.

Police also cordoned off the grounds of an independent Islamic school near Crowborough in East Sussex, which has regularly hosted camping weekends for Muslim youths.

The school has reportedly been used by Hamza and his followers for physical and spiritual training exercises.

Riot police arrived at the Bridge to China Town restaurant at about 10pm on Friday, where a group of 15 Muslim men were eating.

Police said that the suspects, aged 17 to 48, had been under surveillance for “many months” and are alleged to have been involved in the selection and indoctrination of recruits rather than actual weapons training.

Sources said that the men were not planning an “immediate” attack, nor were the arrests linked to the recent alleged plot to blow up airliners or the July 7 London bombings.

One security source said: “It’s all to do with the wider process, with training people in Britain to go and martyr themselves in terrorist operations abroad.”

A second source said that once trained and indoctrinated into suicide bombing, the recruits would be able to carry out attacks both abroad and in Britain: “That’s where we think this investigation is going to lead us.”

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