A SMALL arsenal of weapons, including a stun gun and a CS gas canister, was seized during a police raid on the controversial Finsbury Park Mosque in North London, Scotland Yard said last night.

Detectives also recovered hundreds of documents including forged passports, believed to be French, faked French identity cards and counterfeit credit cards.

A number of arrests were made when up to 150 police, some armed, surrounded the building at 2am before using a battering ram to burst through the doors.

Five Algerian men and a Somali, aged between 23 and 48, and an Albanian, 22, were detained. Among them were three Algerians who the police and the Security Service, MI5, did not know had entered the country. Police have now asked immigration officials to check on the status of all seven in this country.

One of the three was said to be a “hugely significant figure” in the ricin poison plot uncovered two weeks ago. His arrest is said to be one of the most important made since police began tracking down members of the ricin network.

Police also removed computer equipment. M15 is reported to have asked the GCHQ listening station at Cheltenham to intercept thousands of coded e-mails sent and received by the mosque.

The raid, codenamed Operation Mermant, was mounted after police analysed material seized during a series of arrests following the discovery of the makeshift laboratory in North London. Senior officers now suspect that they have uncovered a major supply base for Islamic terrorists.

The mosque has been a focal point for Islamic fundamentalism for more than six years under the influence of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the one-armed, one-eyed Egyptian-born cleric.

Scotland Yard insists that it did not intrude on the main areas of the mosque that are used for worship, but officers did break down locked doors to a number of offices, including a basement office used by Abu Hamza and his deputy Abu Obeida, an Algerian asylum-seeker who has been in the UK since 1999.

As police continued to search the offices and the mosque’s third-floor accommodation area, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter described the raid as intelligence-led and said that it aimed to make arrests as well as seizing papers. Mr Trotter said that it was part of a “coherent campaign to keep this country safe”.

“There will be more arrests to come in the future as a result of the intelligence we are gathering,” he said.

The weapons found included an electric Taser stun gun, of the kind used by law enforcement agencies in the United States and currently illegal in the UK. A blank-firing pistol was also recovered.

After the weapons were found, Abu Hamza said: “This is not used for the mosque at all. This is not a terrorist weapon. This has nothing to do with the mosque.”

There was a mixed reaction to the operation among prominent British Muslims and clerics, with some supporting the police but many voicing grave concern. Tension was growing among Algerians in North London last night amid claims that the police raid had offended local Muslims.

Around 100 Muslims, mostly Algerian, went to the heavily policed cordon around the building throughout the day to see the damaged door and smashed windows.

Karim Nagib, a driving instructor who came to Britain ten years ago, said: “Algerian police would not go into churches in Algeria in that way. Being an Algerian now means people think you might be a terrorist. Britain is the best country to be in and I am proud to be British, but I feel sad about what happened at the mosque.”

Local residents said that the raid began shortly before 2am when a helicopter hovered low over the mosque’s minaret and used a high-powered beam to flood the building in light.

Police had the entire area sealed off within seconds, and armed officers guarded the perimeter while dog-handlers patrolled a railway line along the east side of the mosque.

Moments later there was a loud crash as a hydraulic battering ram was used to break open the heavy wooden entrance doors.

Laurence Baxter, 32, a policy analyst with the Consumers’ Association, said: “I have been concerned about the mosque, but I find it reassuring that the police are being active. My main concern last night was getting back to sleep.”

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