But in a statement to reporters, Clarke went out of his way to say: "We know the overwhelming majority of the Muslim community are law-abiding and completely reject all forms of violence."
Relatives of three of the arrested men insisted they had done nothing wrong.
Sajjad Ahmad, the uncle of an 18-year-old detained along with his two cousins aged 22 and 17, told the Daily Mirror: "They are just regular English guys. They are as British as they come. They don't even have beards."
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