Scotland Yard today arrested three persons, including a woman, on suspicion of supporting terror acts in Syria even as a growing number of British Muslim families are working with police to prevent their relatives from joining terror networks in war-torn regions of the world.
Two men aged 29 and 18 from Levenshulme in Manchester, and a 21-year-old woman from Trafford are in custody.
A 29-year-old man from Oxford has also been arrested on being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, police said today.
The four are being questioned in Manchester.
Britain's senior-most counter-terrorism officer, Cressida Dick, has heralded a huge upsurge in arrests of would-be "jihadists" since the New Year, as Scotland Yard claims to pursue a more "sensitive" approach to terrorism.
"Counter-terrorism policing, if you went back 10 years, would have been seen as the macho end of a macho organisation," the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service told The Times.
"We're getting lots of support from families who are ringing up and saying they are worried about their brother, son, sister sometimes, friend or indeed from other sources of information and intelligence," she added.
An estimated 400 Britons have gone to Syria to fight, mainly with anti-Assad groups, some of which are linked to al- Qaeda. There have been more Syria-related arrests since the beginning of the year than there were in the whole of 2013, driven by parents who prefer to see their children arrested at home rather than killed on the battlefield.
Dick said: "We [have] certainly got a lot more information and a lot more concerned people. We want to increase the proportion of people that would contact us, but we are getting a lot of calls for help.
"We are working effectively with those families, it's obviously a very complex issue particularly if it results in a loved one being arrested."
She urged more families to come forward.
