British police arrested a 10th suspect in the terrorist beheading of a soldier while they struggled to prevent a bloody clash between 1,000 anti-Muslim ultranationalists and their opponents in the heart of London.
The latest suspect was described only as a 50-year-old man seized in Welling, east of London, on suspicion of taking part in a plot to attack and dismember 25-year-old British soldier Lee Rigby last week.
The arrest was disclosed as beer-swilling supporters of the extreme right-wing English Defense League, chanting anti-Muslim slogans, marched from Trafalgar Square to Prime Minister David Cameron’s Downing Street office.
“They’ve had their Arab spring. This is time for the English spring,” Tommy Robinson, a leader of the group, told them.
Police had to break up a clash between the marchers and members of another group, Unite Against Fascism.
Cameron came under sharp criticism yesterday when it was disclosed he had visited the headquarters of Britain’s MI5 intelligence service Sunday to praise their work, despite reports of a series of security blunders.
Meanwhile, Kenyan officials said yesterday they arrested one of Rigby’s killers, Michael Adebolajo, in November 2010 when he tried to sneak into Somalia to join a group linked to al Qaeda.
They said Adebolajo — who gained notoriety with his blood-soaked, on-camera rant after killing Rigby last week — was handed over to British intelligence officers, but they failed to take the matter seriously.
It also was disclosed that Usman Ali, an extremist preacher believed to have led prayers with Adebolajo, and fellow suspected killer Michael Adebowale, had previously been arrested in Britain over an al Qaeda plot.
Ali was said to have been taken into custody in 2006 after his phone number was found in a diary of a suspect in a conspiracy to blow up the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa and behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Meanwhile, French anti-terror investigators were reported making progress in the copycat case of a 23-year-old French soldier who was stabbed on Saturday while on patrol with two colleagues in Paris.
The bearded suspect fled, but was recorded on a video praying a few minutes before the attack.
Cameron, who was in Paris at the time of the London incident, came under additional criticism yesterday when he was photographed beginning a weeklong vacation in Ibiza, Spain.
“Does anyone think Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair would disappear at a time like this?” gibed John Mann, a member of the opposition Labor Party.