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British police arrest suspected train bomber

Posted on: Wednesday, 27 July 2005, 17:48 CDT

By Michael Holden and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - Police arrested a man on Wednesday they believe planted a bomb on a London underground train last week, but warned three other suspects still at large could attack again.

It was the first time police arrested a suspected bomber since four suicide bombers killed 52 in London on July 7 and four more devices failed to explode two weeks later.

Anti-terrorist police chief Peter Clarke said the arrest of Yasin Hassan Omar in a dawn raid in the central English city of Birmingham was an important development in Britain's biggest ever manhunt.

But he urged the public to remain watchful and alert a week after three bombs on underground trains and a fourth on a bus failed to detonate. He appealed for information on three other men suspected of planting bombs at the same time as Omar.

"I must emphasize that until these men are arrested they remain a threat," told a news conference.

The botched bombings on July 21 came two weeks after four suicide bombers killed 52 people in three underground trains and a bus. Police have linked the suicide bombers to al Qaeda.

Clarke said police used an electric stun gun to disable Omar before taking him to a central London police station.

Omar, 24, was being sought over an attempted attack on Warren Street underground station. He came to Britain from Somalia as a child.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "I think it is an important development ... Obviously we are greatly heartened by the operations today."

The American TV channel ABC, citing investigation sources, said detectives probing the first bomb plot on July 7 had found 16 ready-made bombs in a car rented by one of the attackers.

Some were packed with nails to act as shrapnel, ABC said.

POLICE SWOOP

The BBC said Omar was wearing a rucksack when he was arrested in Birmingham. The bombers in both sets of attacks carried bombs in rucksacks, police said.

Three other men were detained at another address in the Birmingham area and were taken to a local police station.

London police said they arrested three women on suspicion of harboring offenders in a raid linked to the July 21 attacks.

The women were arrested at a public housing estate in the Stockwell area of south London. Witnesses told Reuters that police armed with automatic weapons and shotguns handcuffed the women before taking them away.

Police last week published photos of the four main suspects in the July 21 attempted attacks from images captured on security cameras and appealed to the public to report any sightings but not approach the men.

Newspapers reported on Wednesday that another prime suspect had served a jail sentence for knifepoint robberies.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, wanted over an attempt to plant a bomb on a bus in last week's failed attacks, was jailed for 5 years in 1996 for mugging people when he was part of a teenage gang, the Daily Telegraph said.

The Home Office (interior ministry) said Ibrahim arrived in Britain from the East African country of Eritrea in 1992.

Both Omar and Ibrahim came to Britain as child refugees from East Africa.

The investigation was dealt a public relations blow last week when undercover policemen shot dead a Brazilian electrician at a London underground railway station, mistaking him for a bomber.

Before the body of Jean Charles de Menezes was taken home to Brazil on Wednesday, the lawyer representing his family said: "A man has died who has committed no crime."

"There is ... very little public discussion as to whether those who killed him themselves committed a crime," Gareth Peirce told reporters.

Source: REUTERS

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