Somali London Bomber Arrested

[Sky]

Reports: One failed London bomber arrested

Fox News

 

LONDON — British police Wednesday arrested one of the four alleged terrorists who botched an attack on London's transit system on July 21, British news outlets reported.

 

Sky News -- a sister news organization to FOX News — identified the suspect as being Yasin Hassan Omar. He was one of four people arrested by Scotland Yard in a raid that began at 12:30 a.m. EDT.

 

Plus, off-duty British police nabbed two men traveling on a train in England's Western Midlands region. Lincolnshire police said the train, which was on its way to London's King's Cross station from Newcastle, was stopped at Grantham where the men were arrested late Tuesday.

 

In the arrests of the four suspects, one of the men was zapped with a taser gun during his arrest in Birmingham and is described as one of the four suspected terrorists. He has been taken to the high-security facility at London's Paddington Green police station for questioning.

 

Explosives specialists were called to the scene of the arrest to investigate a suspicious package. One hundred homes in the Hays Mills area of Birmingham were evacuated while the package was disposed of in a controlled explosion.

 

British security officials confirmed that the raids were related to the four bombs that were planted on London Underground trains and a bus on July 21, but failed to fully detonate.

 

"The operations are in connection with the incidents in London on July 21," a police source said on condition of anonymity.

 

The three other arrests in Birmingham and the two in the Western Midlands were being described as "peripheral," but related to the investigation. The Birmingham trio were heing held in custody in the city; it is unclear where the other two men were being held.

 

The arrests came as explosives experts were examining suspicious material found in a north London apartment connected to two men suspected of planting failed bombs, both identified as African immigrants who moved to Britain as children.

 

The bombs were stored in clear plastic food containers and put into dark-colored bags or backpacks. Clarke said those four bombs were similar to another found abandoned in a park Saturday, raising fears that a fifth bomber is on the loose.

 

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair said his government was determined to press forward with new anti-terrorism legislation in the wake of the attacks and vowed not to "give one inch" on his policies in Iraq or the Middle East.

 

Blair on Wednesday declined to comment directly on the arrests but paid tribute to the British police.

 

"I would just like to say that over these past couple of weeks the police have performed in an astonishing way. Their dedication, their commitment, their energy in getting after the people responsible has been remarkable," Blair said.

 

He said international governments needed to improve the way they cooperated in their fight against terrorism.

 

"There will be a strong statement, I hope, coming out of the United Nations Millennium summit in September on this," Blair said.

 

Polls suggest a majority of Britons share that view and that among Muslims, according to a poll released Tuesday, 79 percent believe Iraq was a factor in the attacks.

 

Two of the suspects that have been named for allegedly taking part in the July 21 attempt have been identified as Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, and Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, also known as Muktar Mohammed Said.

 

Omar arrived in Britain from Somalia in 1992 at age 11, the Home Office said. The 24-year-old, a Somali citizen with British residency, is suspected of attempting to blow up a subway train near Warren Street station.

 

Said came to Britain in 1990 from Eritrea, his family said. He was granted residency in 1992 and British citizenship in September 2004, the Home Office said.

 

Both are the children of refugees, the government said.

 

Somalis have been the largest group of asylum seekers over the last decade, with Eritreans in the middle of the pack, according to the Home Office.

 

Said attended his local north London high school in the Stanmore neighborhood between 1991 and 1994, when his family said he moved away from home, returning only rarely to visit.

 

"We were shocked when we saw Muktar's picture in the national news," the family said in a statement. "We immediately attended the police station and made statements to the police. We would suggest that anyone with information contacts the police."

 

Neighbor Sarah Scott remembered a discussion with Said last November about religion, and his reaction when she told him she was an atheist.

 

"He said I should [believe in God] and that he was going to get me some information," the 23-year-old said. He returned with a booklet called "Understanding Islam," in which he had highlighted key passages.

 

"Anyone who says 'there is no God except Allah' and dies holding to that will enter paradise," she recalled one passage as reading.

 

On Tuesday, police explosives experts were examining what they called suspicious "material" found in a search of Omar's apartment that began Monday. Said had recently visited the apartment, according to Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist squad.