A Fox News commentator's remark about the British city of Birmingham being "totally Muslim" was widely mocked on Twitter on Monday, while Prime Minister David Cameron called the expert a "complete idiot".

Security analyst Steven Emerson said Sunday that "non-Muslims just simply don't go in" to the city, during a discussion of multiculturalism in Britain after last week's Paris attacks.

Conservative Muslim school leaders in Britain's second city of Birmingham conducted an "organized campaign" to impose faith-based ideology on their pupils, Education Secretary Michael Gove said on Monday.

Clashes between Muslim governors and non-Muslim senior staff had led to a "culture of fear and intimidation" in which some headteachers felt forced to leave their jobs, leaving those remaining free to impose a narrow curriculum, the minister said.

The government has ordered inspections of 15 schools in Britain's second biggest city after allegations that they are being taken over by Islamic hardliners, officials said on Sunday.

A row has been brewing in Birmingham for weeks since the local council received an anonymous letter alleging a plot to force a change of leadership at four state-run schools.

Three men and a woman were arrested in Britain on Tuesday "on suspicion of Syria-related terrorism offences", police said.

The four were arrested at their homes in the southwest of Birmingham, Britain's second city, in central England, West Midlands Police said.

High winds and heavy rain battered parts of Europe on Monday, leaving at least two people dead and one man lost at sea off France, and disrupting travel two days from Christmas.

In Britain, a man was found dead in a swollen river in northwest England where the water was "fast flowing, and a lot more water than normal", said Inspector Chis Wright of the Cumbria police, adding: "It's fair to say that the weather contributed to the problem."

Police said they arrested four men Tuesday in the central English city of Birmingham as part of an ongoing counter-terrorism investigation that has uncovered an alleged suicide bombing plot.

The men, three aged 19 and one 24, were detained under counter-terror laws in the Sparkhill area on suspicion of fundraising for terrorist purposes and of travelling to Pakistan to undertake terrorist training.