White Muslim convert Richard Dart and a former police community support officer were among six people arrested for allegedly plotting a terror attack in Britain.
Richard Dart, who was radicalised by the cleric Anjem Choudary, was held following police raids in east and west London.
A former PCSO and two of his brothers, who were living just over a mile from the Olympic site in Stratford, were also among those detained during the police and MI5 operation to prevent a suspected terror assault.
One of the brothers was Tasered by officers. Counter-terrorism police had first searched their home last November.
The Daily Telegraph understands the police moved over fears that a group had obtained a sword which could potentially be used in a terrorist attack.
Mr Dart, 29, the son of Dorset teachers, featured in a BBC documentary last year filmed by his own brother about his conversion. During the film, called My Brother the Islamist, he was seen protesting about British soldiers in Afghanistan and accused them of being “murderers”.
He also called for Sharia law to be established in Britain, as well as saying that one of his friends used to be “in the police”, but is not any more. Mr Dart has changed his name to Salahuddin al Britani. Salahuddin comes from the medieval leader who drove King Richard I from Jerusalem during the Crusades.
It emerged last year that the former BBC security guard was living off state benefits in a luxury flat in Mile End, east London.
Anjem Choudary said he had converted Mr Dart but had not been in contact with him for more than a year.
The six, which included one woman, were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism after police raids during the early hours of Thursday, July 5.
Neighbours in Stratford said one of the brothers was Jahangir Alom, 26, who served as a former Metropolitan community support officer between May 2007 and September 2009. He is understood to also go under the name of Abu Khalid.
In 2010, Mr Khalid appeared in a YouTube video to say why he had stopped being a PCSO and had become an Islamic fundamentalist.
In the film he explains that he realized he was leading a “misguided” life after meeting with some “brothers”. He said as a PCSO he was involved in stop and searches and that he now realised he was “implementing kuffur (enemies of Islam) law on the streets of London”.
The other two brothers arrested are understood to be Mohammed Alomgir, 24, and Moybur Alom, 18. Mr Alomgir was hit with a police Taser during the arrests but did not require hospital treatment.
At the same time, in Ealing, west London, a 29-year-old man, believed to be Mr Dart, was arrested in the street, while a 21-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman were held at separate residential premises.
Police insisted that the arrests were not linked to the Olympics and that an attack was not believed to be imminent.
The suspects had been monitored by counter-terrorism officers and MI5 for some time and the arrests were part of a pre-planned intelligence operation.
Mr Dart’s stepfather Thomas Leech, speaking from the family’s home in Weymouth, Dorset, confirmed that Mr Dart had been arrested but said the family did not wish to comment further.
In Stratford, another neighbour said that the three brothers had been “getting more religious throughout the years”. Another said he was “confused” because the “big one” used to be a PCSO, so the events had left him “very surprised”.
Neighbours said the father of the family had left their mother to bring up three sons and one daughter on her own.
During the raid at the Abbey Road address in Stratford, the front door of the house was smashed, leaving debris lying on the doorstep and a red curtain draped over the entrance. Police erected a blue tent in front of the door as officers visited and left the property throughout the day.
A neighbour said the street lights had been extinguished and the road blocked off to traffic just before the arrest.
He said: “It seemed like it was synchronised by the police. There were no sirens. However, at around 4.10am we heard a big blast. I saw from the window that the door of the house flew off.
“It wasn’t a battering ram that the police used, it was an explosion that went, ‘bang’ four times. It was dark. The only thing I could see was the officers all in black in helmets and with riot shields.”
Reje Rahman, 32, a child protection worker, said her 12-year-old daughter was so scared by the raid that she “couldn’t get to sleep afterwards” and thought that the “building was going to collapse”.
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