Ahead of Games,2 terror suspects arrested in London

This doesnt appear to be a big investigation but its still early days, he said,downplaying the importance of the arrests.

Scotland Yard identified the men as an 18-year-old and a 32-year-old,but didnt give their names. The force said in a statement the pair was arrested early Thursday at separate addresses in east London.

A man who identified himself as a friend of the detainees identified the 18-year-old as Jamal ud-Din and said that the older man was someone he knew only as Zakariya. Mizanur Rahman,29,said the arrests might have had something to do with the fact that they recently went canoeing on the River Lee,a branch of which runs through the Olympic site in east London.

He said that the pair has also recently gone shooting with an air rifle in Essex,a largely suburban and rural county east of London. Rahman said he saw nothing amiss with the activities. Its just people trying to get into the Olympic spirit, he said,adding that he believed authorities would try painting it as jihad training.

Intelligence officials say there has been an expected increase in chatter among extremist groups but there are still no specific or credible threats targeting the Olympics. The terror level is labeled substantial,a notch below severe. A substantial threat level indicates that an attack is a strong possibility.

This week European security officials said they were tracking a Norwegian Muslim convert who had gone to Yemen for training and had since become operational.