Suspected Bomb Maker Shot By Police During Anti-terror Raid

Sun Herald

Sunday June 4, 2006

By DEBORAH HAYNES LONDON

BRITISH police have shot and wounded one man and arrested a second in a major anti-terrorism raid on a house in east London following suspicions that it was being used to make chemical weapons.

Police sources said they expected to find a chemical bomb of some kind at the house, while the Press Association news agency said the dawn swoop followed intelligence about a suspected plot on British soil.

BBC television named the arrested men as Abdul Jalal and Abdul Kahar, without giving sources. It said both men were of Bangladeshi origin. One worked for Royal Mail and was said to be religious.

The Metropolitan Police refused to comment on the men's identities and reports about chemical weapons. But Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the force's anti-terrorist branch, said: "The intelligence was such that it demanded an intensive investigation and response.

"We planned an operation that was designed to mitigate any threat to the public either from firearms or from any hazardous substances."

Anti-terror officers worked closely with other agencies, including the Security Service and the Health Protection Agency (HPA), to plan the raid. The HPA has responsibilities for public safety when hazards involving chemicals, poisons or radiation occur.

Highlighting the significance of the raid, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is in Italy, was informed about the plan beforehand, a spokeswoman from his Downing Street office said.

Police said the operation had no link to the deadly bombings last July on the London transport network which left 56 people dead, including the four suicide bombers.

A large number of officers, put at 250 by the BBC, stormed the house in the Forest Gate area at 4am on Friday (1pm AEST), where police fired a single shot. A neighbour said he saw a man wearing a bloodstained T-shirt being carried out of the property on Lansdown Road. He was reportedly shot in the shoulder.

The man, 23, whose wounds were said to be not life-threatening, was taken to the Royal London Hospital, where he was later arrested on suspicion of being involved in plotting "acts of terrorism", police said.

Angry at the shooting, about 20 Asian men gathered outside the hospital gate to protest.

A 21-year-old man, who did not want to be named, said: "Going into someone's house and shooting them in front of their mum, that's not right is it?

"Just because they have got a beard doesn't mean you can shoot them."

Another man, aged 23, who also requested anonymity, told the Press Association that the injured suspect was a "straightforward guy" who worked for the Royal Mail.

The second man arrested in the raid, aged 20, was being held at a high-security police station in central London. Reports said the two men were brothers.

More than 12 hours after the raid began, scores of officers in protective clothing were still at the scene, where a number of cordons were in place and roads closed.

Tents and scaffolding were erected in front of the raided house. An eight-kilometre air exclusion zone was in force overhead.

Mr Clarke said officers were conducting a thorough investigation to prove or disprove the "specific intelligence" that had prompted the raid.

Several other people who were in the house at the time of the raid were moved out but not arrested.

© 2006 Sun Herald

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