Suspected London bomber held
2005-07-27 22:21
London - British police using a "stun gun" have arrested one of the suspects in last week's failed bombings in London, but were still hunting for the three others to thwart the risk of new attack, a senior officer said.
The Metropolitan police's anti-terror chief Peter Clarke said Somali-born Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, was arrested on Wednesday, alone in a house where police carried out a pre-dawn raid in the central England city of Birmingham.
Hassan Omar is among four men suspected of having tried, but failed, to blow up three London subway trains and a bus on July 21, in attacks mirroring the July 7 bombings that killed 52 people, plus the four bombers.
But, Clarke said police were still looking for the three other suspects.
"I must emphasise that until these men are arrested they remain a threat," he said.
Hassan Omar, implicated in the failed bombing of a train in a tunnel between Oxford Street and Warren Street, was detained after being subdued by a Taser gun during the raid, said Clarke.
The Taser is a non-lethal weapon that disables a person by firing an electrical charge into the body.
Hassan Omar was now being held at a London police station for interrogation, Clarke added.
He was arrested at an address in Heybarnes Road, east Birmingham, where police also evacuated 100 nearby homes as a precaution after a suspect package was reported found.
Although forensic examinations were continuing, Clarke said "there is no intelligence to suggest there were explosives".
Came and went in the night
Neighbours said several men had used the rundown house in recent weeks, but none were known to local residents.
"They would come at 02:00 and then when you looked in the morning, the car had gone," Stewart said.
Shortly after the Heybarnes Road raid, three more men were arrested in a raid at a second home in Bankdale Road, also in east Birmingham.
A total of eight people remained in custody in relation to Thursday's botched attacks.
Police said one man, who was detained under anti-terrorism laws in south London on Friday, was no longer a suspect and had been released.
As the largest police investigation in British history intensified, police said they had yet to directly link the July 21 and July 7 attacks.
But, London police chief Ian Blair said a "similar mind" appeared to be behind both attacks, which he said bore remarkable similarities both in the targets and the types of home-made bombs used.
The Times newspaper said police believed the suspects had returned to a north London address the day after the failed attacks to re-arm.
- AFP