Suspected terrorists scouted Britain’s Houses of Parliament and major shopping centers before they were arrested, it was disclosed yesterday.
Several of the 12 young men picked up in Monday’s sweeps were foreign nationals — including five Bangladeshis — but others were British-born, officials said.
The disclosures came as fears of holiday-season terror attacks swept Europe from Italy to Sweden.
British officials gave few details, but security sources said a large-scale attack in four cities had been averted.
The men, ages 17 to 28, were arrested in the country’s largest counterterrorism raid in nearly two years.
Also yesterday:
* The US Embassy in Stockholm tightened security after receiving an unspecified threat.
Last week, an Iraqi-born Swede detonated an explosives-laden backpack on a busy Stockholm street.
* Danish police filed a terror charge against a Chechen man accused of accidentally setting off a letter bomb they believed he intended to send to a newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.