Some of the men arrested last Friday in an anti-terrorist operation are believed to have taken part in training camps in the Lake District.

The Guardian newspaper reports that the group had been under surveillance at the unnamed site in Cumbria by officers from the anti-terrorist branch of Scotland Yard and MI5.

There are many remote areas of the Lake District suitable for training camps. Police and MI5 have refused to name the location they had under suveillance

14 people were arrested in the raid by police on diners at the Bridge to China restaurant in south London. The restaurant itself is not implicated in the investigation. An Islamic school, the Jameah Islamiyah, near Crowborough in Sussex, is at the centre of an intense search by police. Jailed cleric Abu Hamza is understood to have run a camp in the grounds, but was asked to leave. One of his associates, Abu Abdullah, was arrested last week during raids co-ordinated with that on the Bridge to China restaurant.

There is no suggestion that weapons or explosives training took place at the Lake District camp. It is alleged the sessions were bonding and team-building exercises. The latest arrests were ‘on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism’. Police say the arrests are not linked either to the recent alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners nor to the London bombings of July last year. Some of the suspects may also be charged under the controversial Terrorism Act 2006, which makes it an offence to glorify terrorism.

Police have been granted warrants to hold three of those arrested until Wednesday and the other 11 until Friday.