Police arrest two suspected London bombers: TV

By Katherine Baldwin and Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) – British police on Friday arrested two
more of the suspected bombers they had been hunting over failed
attacks on London’s transport system, TV reports quoted police
sources as saying.
A police source, hailing a breakthrough in Britain’s biggest
ever manhunt, told Reuters the arrests were “potentially very
significant.” Only one of the four suspected attackers whose
bombs failed to explode on July 21 remains at large.

Armed police surrounded an apartment in west London and
were heard ordering a suspect to surrender. Witnesses said two
men were taken away from the scene and a another was arrested
nearby.

The dramatic siege unfolded live on television, with one
witness relaying via her mobile phone the shouts of police
officers urging the suspect to surrender.

The four would-be bombers mounted their abortive attacks
exactly two weeks after four suspected Islamist militants
killed themselves and 52 other people in blasts on three
underground trains and a bus in London.

Another man suspected of carrying out one of the July 21
attacks was arrested on Wednesday in a dawn raid in the central
England city of Birmingham.

Police confirmed they had made a total of three arrests at
two different locations on Friday.

The BBC and Sky television said men suspected of trying to
carry out attacks at the Oval underground railway station and
on a Number 26 bus had been detained.

All those arrested were taken to the high-security
Paddington Green police station, the police source told
Reuters.

One eyewitness, who declined to give her name, said police
in the dramatic stand-off in west London had shouted:
“Mohammed, come out with (only) your underwear on and your
hands up.” He shouted back: “Why should I come out like that?”

A police officer shouted: “We need to check you haven’t got
explosives on you.”

BLAST HEARD

Witness Brian Dempster told Reuters: “There was an
explosion just after 12 (0700 EDT). Police shouted at us to
stay in the house then there was shooting going on.

“We heard quite a few bursts of it. It sounded like
machineguns. The police came around with gas masks on and
Alsatian dogs and told us to get out.”

Another witness reported up to six explosions and said
police had told him they were caused by stun grenades.

Police specialists in forensic suits and gas masks were
seen preparing to enter the housing estate in the Ladbroke
Grove area.

The raid took place a few hundred meters (yards) from where
a fifth bomb was found abandoned in bushes two days after the
failed attacks.

A second raid took place in the nearby Noting Hill area.
Witnesses saw one man handcuffed and held between two police
officers as he was bundled into a van and taken away.

In a day of frequent and dramatic developments, police also
arrested two women under anti-terrorism legislation at
Liverpool Street station in the heart of the city and closed
the complex.

The station was cordoned off while police investigated a
suspect package. It was later reopened. (Writing by Paul
Majendie, additional reporting by Michael Holden, Kate Holton
and Mike Peacock)