London (CNN) - Nine men have been arrested in the United Kingdom on suspicion of terror offenses, London's Metropolitan Police said Thursday.

The men, ages 22 to 51, were detained Thursday morning in London on suspicion of being members of a banned organization, supporting a banned organization and encouraging terrorism. They were taken to police stations in central London and remain in custody, a police statement said.

Eighteen homes, business premises and community buildings across London are being searched as part of the investigation. Officers are also searching a home in Stoke on Trent in the English Midlands.

"These arrests and searches are part of an ongoing investigation into Islamist related terrorism and are not in response to any immediate public safety risk," said the Met Police statement.

Police did not give the identities of those arrested nor name the banned organization concerned.

But the UK's Press Association news agency cited sources as saying radical British cleric Anjem Choudary was among those arrested.

Choudary, who was a co-founder of the banned UK Islamist group Al Muhajiroun, told CNN last month that the world had been split into two camps.

There's a "camp which believes that sovereignty and supremacy belongs to God. They are the Islamic State, at the head of which is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," Choudary said. "In the other camp you have those people who believe sovereignty and supremacy belongs to man. At the head of that camp is Barack Obama."

"I believe this Islamic State will spread, rapidly, and I believe it will be in Europe and even America within decades."