London - British police arrested five people on Thursday on suspicion of involvement in recent cyber attacks conducted by an Internet hacking group that has backed WikiLeaks.
The five males, aged from 15 to 26, were arrested during an early morning raid at their homes across the UK for their alleged involvement in the attacks.
Anonymous, a loose-knit collection of activists, has claimed responsibility for attacking the websites of companies such as Visa, Mastercard and Paypal, all of whom severed their links with WikiLeaks after it began publishing its massive trove of secret US diplomatic memos.
Anonymous accused the companies of trying to stifle WikiLeaks and rallied an army of online supporters to flood their servers with traffic, periodically blocking access to their sites for hours at a time.
WikiLeaks said it did not sanction the attacks, which Anonymous said were carried out of sympathy with the secret-spilling site's support for government transparency.
Police said Thursday's raids were part of a police probe into Anonymous carried out together with law enforcement agencies across Europe and the United States.
Other arrests have taken place elsewhere: In the Netherlands, a 16-year-old suspected of being involved in the attacks was arrested in December, while a French official close to the investigation told The Associated Press that a young teenager they suspect of masterminding the attacks was arrested the same month.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of he was not authorised to talk publicly about the arrest, said that police had since released the 15-year-old but have confiscated his computer. - Sapa-AP
Reuters reported that the FBI said on Thursday it executed more than 40 search warrants in the United States as part of its investigation into cyber attacks by Anonymous.