British Arrest 4 in ’05 Transit Attack Suspects Include Bomber’s Widow

By Jane Perlez

The British police on Wednesday arrested three men and the widow of a suicide bomber involved in the terror attack on the London transit system in 2005 on suspicion that they helped in the atrocity, which killed 52 people. Three of the early-morning detentions, the second round of arrests in six weeks in connection with the attack, were in the West Yorkshire region of Britain, where three of the four suicide bombers lived, and the other in the West Midlands region.

The arrests suggested that after a long period of investigation with little early success, the police were beginning to piece together how the plot worked and who else, aside from the four suicide bombers, was responsible.

In a stern message last month, Peter Clarke, the chief of counterterrorism at Scotland Yard, said that his investigators would soon catch up with others who he said were aware of the planning of the attack.

The arrests Wednesday appeared to bear out Clarke’s remarks.

For a long time, it seemed the authorities would be unable to charge anyone with the transit attacks, the worst peacetime casualty toll in Britain’s history. But the latest arrests, together with the apprehension of three men in late March, are changing the presumption that the bombers took the secrets of their plan with them.

Now, the organization behind the attack – both in Britain and in Pakistan, where two of the suicide bombers traveled – could be publicized at a trial. It is unlikely, however, that those arrested Wednesday masterminded the plot, analysts said.

For the British authorities, the arrests presented a respite from the furor surrounding disclosures last week that the security services knew about two of the suicide bombers in the 2005 attack, Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, more than a year before they unleashed their bombs.

Those arrested Wednesday included Hasina Patel, 29, who was married to Khan, the suicide bomber, and Khalid Khaliq, who lived on the same street as Tanweer.

The other two arrested were identified as Arshad Patel, a brother of the widow, and Imran Motala. All were described as being in their 20s and 30s. They, together with Hasina Patel and Khaliq, are suspected of commissioning, preparing or instigating acts of terror, said a spokesman at the Metropolitan Police in London. They were being held at a central London police station for questioning, he added.

Analysts said Hasina Patel was being questioned about her knowledge of the planning for the attack before it took place.

Under a British terrorism law enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, people who know about a planned terror attack are obliged to tell the authorities or face prosecution.

But successfully prosecuting such cases has proved difficult. When a British citizen of Pakistani background, Asif Mohammed Hanif, blew himself up in an attack outside a cafe in Tel Aviv in 2003, his sister, wife and brother were arrested in Britain and charged for not telling the authorities what they knew about Hanif’s plans. In a landmark trial, all three were found not guilty.

In contrast to earlier arrests, the West Yorkshire police made the morning arrests in a low-key way, using local officers and fewer officers than in similar arrests in the past.

During earlier arrests connected with terror cases that have involved British suspects of Pakistani descent there have been complaints from communities of overbearing police operations.

The arrests Wednesday took place in Dewsbury; Beeston, an area near Leeds where several of the 2005 suicide bombers lived; and Birmingham. The police said searches were continuing in connection with the arrests at five addresses in West Yorkshire and one place in Birmingham.

The three British men of Pakistani origin arrested in late March in the Beeston area of West Yorkshire were charged in early April with conspiring to help in the transit attacks. They are Mohammed Shakil, 30; Sadeer Saleem, 26; and Shipon Ullah, 23.

Shakil and Ullah were arrested at Manchester airport moments before boarding a plane for Pakistan.

(c) 2007 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.