Man held over Birmingham mosque bomb threat

A man has been arrested after a message was posted on Facebook threatening to bomb a mosque.

Officers from West Midlands Police detained the 25-year-old after a warrant was executed at an address in Rugeley, Staffordshire, at 5.15am today.

Police said the threat was made against Birmingham Central Mosque, in the Highgate area of the city, which was later searched for explosives.

A force spokesman said: "Police received a number of calls from concerned members of the public in relation to the threat last night.

"A thorough search of the mosque was carried out by officers, including specialist search dogs that are trained to search for explosives, but nothing untoward was found in the building."

The spokesman said the arrested man was in custody helping police with their inquiries.

Detective Inspector Nigel Harrison said: "We are grateful to the mosque for their cooperation with this ongoing inquiry and I would like to reassure the community that we are taking this incident extremely seriously."

PA