Five Britons arrested in connection with the distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks in support of WikiLeaks were released on Friday on police bail.

The Metropolitan police's central e-crime unit had arrested three teenagers, aged 15, 16 and 19, along with two more individuals in a series of raids conducted in the West Midlands, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Surrey and London.

The clandestine group Anonymous, which had launched DDoS attacks under “Operation Payback” to show their support for the whistle blowing site WikiLeaks, condemned the arrests and warned government websites to get ready to face more online attacks.

Anonymous described the police operation as disproportionate and claimed that DDoS attacks were legitimate protest tactic.

Meanwhile, the US government investigation agency FBI launched more than 40 raids across the country as part of its Anonymous probe. They seized computer from a number of members of the loosely organized clandestine group Anonymous.

A few months back, WikiLeaks exposed thousands of confidential US cables, which led to legal action against site’s founder. Many financial companies, such as PayPal, MasterCard and Amazon, stopped supporting WikiLeaks. In their protest to actions against WikiLeaks, Anonymous triggered DDoS attacks against websites of government and financial companies.