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Police arrest two suspected London bombers: TV

Posted on: Friday, 29 July 2005, 11:10 CDT

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)

Source: REUTERS

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