UK 'blocked bomb plotter' arrest
Thursday, July 28, 2005; Posted: 1:24 p.m. EDT (17:24 GMT)
(CNN) -- A month before the London bombings, British authorities denied a request by their counterparts in the United States to apprehend a man now believed to have ties to the July 7 bombers, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Haroon Rashid Aswat, 30, of Indian heritage, is currently in custody in Zambia, U.S. and Zambian officials told CNN.
U.S. authorities wanted to capture Aswat, who was then in South Africa, and question him about a 1999 plot to establish a "jihad training camp" in Bly, Oregon.
According to the sources, U.S. officials had Aswat under surveillance in South Africa weeks before the July 7 attacks that killed 52 commuters and the four bombers.
U.S. authorities had asked Britain if they could take Aswat into custody but Britain refused because he was a British citizen, the sources said.
Meanwhile in Britain Thursday -- one week after failed attacks on London's transport network -- a nationwide manhunt focused on three of the suspected terrorists.
But as more arrests were announced, taking the number of those in custody in the investigation to 20, including one of the alleged bombers, the country's top police official said more attacks were possible if the suspects in the July 21 attempted bombings remained at large.
Early Thursday, nine men were arrested in the Tooting area of south London. They are not among the suspected bombers sought by police in the attacks on three Underground trains and a double-decker bus, authorities said.
Six of the men were arrested at one address, and three at another, according to Metropolitan Police. All nine were taken to a central London police station, and searches at the addresses were ongoing.
"It does remain possible that those at large will strike again," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair said Thursday.
"It does also remain possible that there are other cells who are capable and intent on striking again."
As part of its investigation into the attempted bombings, police have taken 1,800 witness statements, have received 5,000 calls to the terrorist tip line, and are examining 15,000 closed circuit television tapes.
Meanwhile, police arrested three women Wednesday night on suspicion of "harboring offenders" in connection with the July 21 plot. Those women remained in custody Thursday in central London.
They were taken from a south London apartment raided by armed police.
Three neighbors told CNN that one of the suspected would-be bombers -- the one who allegedly tried to set off a bomb at the city's Shepherd's Bush Underground Station -- lived there, having recognized him in a new photo released by police.
Resident Donna Priestley Moore told CNN that two of the women arrested were accompanied by children, including a toddler and a baby.
The apartment building, known as Blair House, is in the Stockwell neighborhood near the Stockwell Underground station where the Shepherd's Bush Station bomber and two other suspected bombers boarded their trains.
Police released a new picture of the suspected Shepherd's Bush bomber on Wednesday. It shows him in a close circuit television image riding a bus nearly an hour and a half after he tried to detonate his bomb.
Police believe the man -- who was previously pictured at the Stockwell station carrying a backpack and wearing a dark blue England soccer shirt -- threw that shirt away after fleeing the station, leaving it on a road that runs parallel to the train tracks. He then rode a bus for 50 minutes.
"We need to know where he went when he got off the bus," said Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch. "Until these men are arrested, they remain a threat."
Authorities are still seeking the three other suspected July 21 bombers, following the arrest Wednesday of Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, a Somali with British residency.
Omar -- arrested in Birmingham, 100 miles north of London -- is suspected of placing a backpack bomb at London's Warren Street Underground station as part of the failed bombings.
Three other men were arrested at a second address in Birmingham. Clarke called Omar's arrest "an important development in the investigation."
Omar was taken to the high-security Paddington Green police station in London, while the other three men, seen as less significant, were taken to another station.
The manhunt has been under way since the July 21 partial detonations of backpack bombs in London that appeared to imitate the July 7 terrorist attacks that killed 52 commuters and the four bombers. Both attacks targeted three underground trains and a double-decker bus.
"The second attacks on the 21st of July should not be taken as some indication that the weakening of the capability or resolve of those responsible," said Blair, the police commissioner.
"This is not the B-team. These weren't the amateurs. They made a mistake, they made one mistake. We are very, very lucky."
As police arrested Omar on Wednesday, he resisted and was subdued after being shot with a Taser "stun gun," Clarke said. No gunshots were fired.
There was no intelligence to suggest that there were explosives in the house, Clark said. However, about 100 nearby homes were evacuated as a precaution.
"A detailed forensic examination is taking place which will take some time to complete," he said.
Three other men detained in connection to the July 21 probe remain in Paddington Green. Two others have been released.
In addition to Omar, police have identified one other suspected bomber, Muktar Said Ibrahim, who was born in Eritrea and became a British citizen in 2003. Ibrahim's family in London provided police with information that led to his identification, and called on fellow citizens to do the same.
Residents of a north London building apartment raided Monday by Metropolitan Police have said Omar and Ibrahim lived together. The raided apartment has been registered for the past six years to Omar, who until recently received a $550-per-month housing subsidy from the government.
In addition to the ongoing search of the suspected bombers' apartment, officers searched and conducted forensic examinations of two other residences in north London Wednesday, according to a police statement.
One of the residences is in the same neighborhood where, a day earlier, police impounded a white Volkswagen as part of the July 21 probe. (Full story)
CNN's Kelli Arena Nic Robertson, Henry Schuster, Phil Hirschkorn and Andrew Carey contributed to this report. |
