By ALAN COWELL
Published: September 2, 2006

LONDON, Sept. 2 – British police arrested 14 men in south, east and north London on Friday, raiding a halal restaurant and an Islamic school in the latest display of concern about the spread of terrorist activity in Britain.

Skip to next paragraph Separately, police in the northwestern city of Manchester said they arrested two men today in raids on three homes.

Police said neither incident was linked to the huge security alert that began on May 10 when police rounded up 24 people to thwart what they called a terrorist suicide plot to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners.

At that time, British authorities raised their terrorism threat assessment level to "critical," the highest designation, meaning that an attack was imminent. That was reduced four days later to "severe," meaning that an attack was ''highly likely." The threat assessment level remained at "severe" on Saturday, according to the British MI5 Security Service Web site.

Word of the latest raids in London began to emerge late Friday when up to 50 officers stormed into the Bridge to China Town restaurant on Borough Road in south London. People living nearby said the eatery was crowded at the time and was generally popular with Muslims because it serves halal food permissible under Islamic dietary laws. The police did not say what the men were suspected of doing.

Referring to the number of police officers, the restaurant owner, Madi Blyani, told the BBC: "It was surprising actually, because plenty of them suddenly came in all together. There were more than 50 or 60 of them. They suddenly came inside because they were suspicious of some of the customers, and they talked to them. They talked to them more than one hour, two hours."

A police statement on Saturday said the 14 men arrested in southern England were seized under counterterrorism laws "on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism." Police officers declined to go into detail about their search of a privately-run Islamic school at Crowborough, south of London, but said it was linked to the overnight raids.

Publicly-funded schools catering to people of different religious beliefs have been broadly supported by the government, which argues they give parents greater choice. But critics maintain that, like Britain's broader policies of multi-culturalism, they fragement society. According to figures released in 2005, the vast majority of Britain's publicly-funded 7,000 faith schools were Christian in addition to 36 Jewish, five Muslim and two Sikh schools. But there are also around 120 privately-run Islamic schools.

"The arrests in south and east London follow many months of surveillance and investigation," the police statement said, calling the raids a "pre-planned, intelligence-led operation."

In the latest raids, police in Manchester said they seized two men at 6 a.m. Saturday, linking the arrests to the detention of a third man in the same area on August 23.

Since the raids on Aug. 10, police have charged 14 people with terrorism offenses including conspiracy to murder and planning to smuggle explosive components onto airplanes to assemble and detonate them on board. Five more people are being held under counterterrorism laws permitting detention without charge for 28 days.