BERLIN (AP) — Germany's top security official has announced a ban on the neo-Nazi group Combat 18 Deutschland.

A spokesman for Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said police were conducting raids early Thursday in six German states.

The spokesman, Steve Alter, said police operations were being carried out in Brandenburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia.

The group Combat 18 was founded in Britain in the early 1990s as a militant wing of the British National Party. It has since spawned chapters in several European countries. The number 18 stands for the first and eighth letters of the alphabet, AH, which are the initials of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.