Italy arrests '4th UK bomber'
2005-07-29 19:07
Rome - A Somali man suspected of being the fourth bomber in the July 21 failed bombings in London was arrested on Friday in Rome, Italy's interior minister said.
Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said Osman Hussain, a naturalised British citizen, was picked up by Italian police in an ongoing operation.
In London, British police on Friday captured two more suspected bombers who fled after a failed attack on London last week, a report said, marking a potentially crucial breakthrough in the massive investigation.
London's Metropolitan Police confirmed that officers had made some arrests in connection with the investigation into the July 21 attacks, but refused to confirm whether any of the bombing suspects were among those held.
Police arrested the two men during raids around west London on Friday, Sky News television said, citing unnamed police sources. One fugitive, Somali-born Yasin Hassan Omar, had already been detained on Wednesday in Birmingham.
If the report is confirmed, it would mean police have detained three of the four suspected bombers in the July 21 attack.
The suspected would-be suicide bombers fled when their devices seemingly failed to detonate properly, frustrating an attempt to blow up three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus and sparking one of Britain's biggest-ever manhunts.
Connection
In a flurry of activity on Friday, armed police launched raids on two separate parts of west London and also shut down one of the city's main stations.
The most dramatic scenes were played out in Dalgarno Gardens, a run-down estate of public housing apartments in the White City area, where locals reported seeing police laying siege to a man in a flat.
"They are saying: You must take off your clothes, put your hands on your head and come out,'" said Paul Redfern, a 72-year-old retired man.
Negotiating
Other locals said they heard a loud explosion on the estate before the siege began, followed by a series of smaller blasts, believed to be police stun grenades.
Later, a reporter at the estate saw three unmarked police cars leaving at high speed. Officers refused to say whether the suspect was inside one of the vehicles.
In a separate operation, streets around Notting Hill, another part of west London nearby, were sealed off for another raid, residents there said.
Liverpool Street
Meanwhile, Liverpool Street station, just on the eastern edge of the city centre, was cleared on Friday as armed police made arrests, a spokesperson for the British Transport Police said.
Two women were arrested and a suspicious package had also been found, he added.
The Metropolitan Police, which has been leading the hunt for the July 21 attackers and the masterminds who planned a deadly attack two weeks earlier in which 56 people died, said little beyond confirming armed raids had begun.
- AFP