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Hunt Closing in As Bomb Suspect Omar Seized Somali Found in Raid on Birmingham House

Posted on: Thursday, 28 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

THE net was closing in on the July 21 terrorists last night after Yasin Hassan Omar, the suspected would-be Warren Street Tube bomber, was arrested in an armed raid in Birmingham.

Detectives took the 24-yearold Somali, who had been captured using a Taser electric stun gun, to Paddington Green police station in London for questioning.

There were then reports that police in Belgium had been alerted as the hunt for Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, the suspected failed Hackney bus bomber and a flatmate of Omar, appeared to have moved to the continent.

Another report said he had left Britain via Dover on a coach and had headed to Amsterdam.

Police also released a new, clearer picture of the failed Shepherd's Bush bomber, one of two suspects as yet un-named.

In a day of fast-moving events, officers from the Metropolitan Police's anti-terrorist branch raided two homes in north London and later another address in Stockwell, south London. There were reports that the latter was the Shepherd Bush suspect's flat.

It was Stockwell where three of the July 21 group boarded a Tube train at the start of their unsuccessful mission to emulate the attacks of July 7, when 52 commuters were murdered by four suicide bombers.

Dozens of police officers in unmarked vans gathered 200 yards from Stockwell Tube station while others guarded a nearby ground-f loor flat.

Samiullah Ainullah, a resident in the block, said four young women were taken out with a boy aged about eight and two smaller children. "The police took the children away and then handcuffed the women." Scotland Yard said three women "were arrested on suspicion of harbouring offenders. They have been taken to a police station in central London." Police said the raid was linked to the investigation into the missing suspects.

The deputy assistant commissioner, Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, confirming Omar had been seized, said no explosives had been found at the raided property.

He described the arrest as "an important development" in Britain's biggest manhunt, but stressed that three suspected terrorists were still on the run.

"They remain a threat."

Mr Clarke released the new picture of the Shepherd's Bush suspect. He is wearing a white vest on a bus he took to Wandsworth in south London after his attempt to blow up a Tube carriage on the Hammersmith and City Line.

Yesterday's breakthrough occurred at about 4.30am after what is thought to have been a tip-off from a member of the public. About 50 officers, including members of MI5, raided a maisonette in Hay Mills, a Birmingham suburb.

Officers used the stun gun to immobilise Omar, who is believed to have had a rucksack with him. No shots were fired.

Scotland Yard declined to say why the suspect was stunned and not shot. The day after the failed bombings, Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian, was mistakenly shot dead at Stockwell Tube.

A suspect package was found at the raided maisonette and an army bomb disposal expert called in. The area was cordoned off and about 100 homes were evacuated.

A few minutes after the first raid, another large contingent of armed officers converged on a semi-detached property at Washwood Heath, a few miles away and also in the east of the city. Here, police arrested three men, whom locals described as "Somalian".

The two houses raided in north London were at Finchley and Enfield, near where the previous day officers had seized a car thought to have been used by one of the July 21 suspects, and only a few miles from New Southgate, where Omar and Ibrahim shared a council flat.

Detectives found a substantial amount of bombmaking equipment, but no arrests were made.

The body of Mr Menezes was to be flown back to Brazil last night. His relatives claimed that, having gunned him down, police had learned the wrong course of action and were now using stun guns instead.

Source: Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

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