Police arrest second bombing suspect

July 23, 2005 - 7:20PM

Police arrested a second man in south London as they combed the city in one of the biggest manhunts in British history on Saturday for four men wanted for failed bomb attacks on London's transport system.

The attacks took place on Thursday two weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 commuters in the British capital.

"He was taken into custody last night," a police spokeswoman told Reuters. "He was arrested in the Stockwell area." She gave no further details.

It was the second arrest in the area close to the site of one of the failed bomb attacks, and took place hours after police chased and shot dead another man in front of shocked passengers in the packed Stockwell Underground station.

Police released closed circuit television pictures of the four suspects and appealed for the public to help find them, but warned that they were dangerous and not to be approached.

The subway shooting sparked a fierce debate over whether police were right to adopt an apparent shoot-to-kill policy in a country where only specialist officers carry weapons.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission and anti-war campaigners condemned the shooting as the start of an unwelcome and dangerous new chapter, but police and London's mayor defended it.

"We don't want the situation to develop where the city is so tense that the police are inclined to shoot first and ask questions afterwards," Stop The War campaign said in a statement.

But Mayor Ken Livingstone said the duty of the police was to protect the public against people considered to be terrorist suspects, and police said they had followed the man they shot from a house under surveillance and he had run when challenged.

Newspapers said the police were operating under secret new guidelines, codenamed Operation Kratos, which allow them to aim for the head and not the body in case the suspect has a bomb.

London has been subjected to two sets of attacks in two weeks. In both cases, four bombs were taken on to three trains and a bus in four locations across the capital.

The first attacks killed 52 people and injured 700 in the worst peacetime attacks in the city's history. But on Thursday the devices failed to go off properly and no one was killed.

Details of the manhunt dominated British TV bulletins, while newspapers splashed the suspects' pictures beneath the words "The Four Most Wanted", "The Fugitives" and "Human Bombs".

Witnesses told of plain-clothes police pursuing a suspect on to a subway train carriage. He slipped as he ran and then was repeatedly shot at point-blank range as he lay on the floor.

"I saw them unload five shots into him -- bang, bang, bang, bang, bang," passenger Mark Whitby, 47, said. "Five shots and he's dead. It was no more than five yards (metres) from me."

London's police chief Ian Blair said his force faced "the greatest operational challenge" in its history.

"This is a very, very fast moving investigation," he told a news conference on Friday. "We are facing previously unknown threats and great danger."

Hundreds of police, some armed with assault rifles and machine guns, took part in a series of raids across London.

Police refused to say if the men in custody or the man shot dead on the train were among the four suspects pictured in the photographs.

But the best-selling Sun tabloid said the first man arrested on Friday was suspected of trying to blow up the bus in Thursday's attempted bombings. Police declined to comment.

The Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade, an al Qaeda-linked group, has claimed responsibility for Thursday's bombings and those of July 7 and has threatened to target Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands, which also have troops in Iraq.

However, the group's claims of responsibility for previous attacks in Europe have been discredited by security experts.

- Reuters
