LONDON, 30 July 2005 — In what has been the best day for the Metropolitan Police since 7/7, all four 7/21 failed suicide bombers are now firmly in custody, following yet another dramatic day yesterday of gun raids and arrests in London, Rome and Lusaka in Zambia.
Police have also arrested a fifth suspected suicide bomber who they believe abandoned a bomb near Wormwood Scrubs on July 21.
Since the failed attempts to detonate four bombs in London on July 21, hardly has a day gone by without dramatic revelations, police raids and arrests. Britain’s biggest police operation to apprehend the four suspected bombers has not come without a price. The operation cost one innocent life — the mistaken killing of 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, who was yesterday buried in his native Sao Paulo. The police operation also cost half a million pounds a day to the British taxpayer.
Following the arrest on Wednesday of Yasin Hassan Omar suspected to be the failed Warren Street tube station bomber, police yesterday arrested 27-year-old Mukhtar Said Ibrahim in a flat in Notting Hill in West London near the famous Portobello Road market, and the third would-be suicide bomber, hitherto unnamed at a flat in Wormwood Scrubs. Mukhtar is suspected of planting the bomb on the No. 26 bus in Hackney Road, and the third suspect of planting a bomb on the Oval tube.
All three are already being questioned in the top security Paddington Green police station in Edgware Road.
Both Mukhtar and the other two suspected bombers initially refused to surrender. Police were afraid that they may have been armed with explosives or with chemical agents. In Notting Hill, heavily armed police with machine guns, gas masks and stun guns prepared in public view a raid on a flat in the Dalgarno Gardens estate which had been cordoned off. Police quietly evacuated the neighbors and surrounding buildings.
In a bizarre exchange between the suspected bomber and the police, an eyewitness said she heard police giving instructions to Mukhtar. “How do I know you are not going to shoot me if I come out?” shouted Mukhtar to the police. “I am scared. I can come out in my underwear with my hands in the air,” he said.
Television images of Mukhtar in his underwear seemed to confirm the conversation between him and the police, who then stormed the flat firing six rounds. Eyewitnesses talked about several loud explosions.
At Tavistock Crescent in Wormwood Scrubs the story was similar, although eyewitnesses talk about hearing gunshots and machine-gun fire. Police arrested the third and fifth suspected failed suicide bombers. The theory is that the fifth bomber did not have the nerve to go through with the plan and decided to dispose of the bomb in bushes at Wormwood Scrubs, not far from the BBC Television Center.
Meanwhile in Rome, the Italian Interior Ministry yesterday confirmed the arrest of the suspected fourth suicide bomber, named Osman Hussein, a Somali, who left London two days ago for Paris, then Milan and finally ending up at a friend’s place in Rome. Hussein, who is suspected of planting the Shepherd’s Bush bomb, also has a brother in Rome, who is also in detention for questioning by Italian police.
Scotland Yard apparently passed on the mobile phone number of Hussein’s brother in Rome, which they found during one of the raids in London, to Italian police. The Italians tapped the phone and identified Hussein through the various conversations he had with his brother. Hussein will be brought back to London as soon as the legal formalities are gone through.
The arrests are a great relief to both the police and public alike in Britain, who have been bracing themselves for more strikes. They are a tribute to the British public including the Muslim community. Over the last few days police have taken over 2,000 witness statements and phone calls, which played a significant part in the arrests.
