July 7 terror plot ‘larger than thought’
Police have found more bombs stashed in a hire car at Luton railway station which was believed to have been rented by members of the suicide team.
Images of the bombs were obtained by the US television network ABC News. They showed home-made high explosives, some of it packaged like pancakes.
Dozens of large nails had been packed around the explosives as shrapnel.
Sources told ABC there were 16 bombs in the car.
There were also images from the inside of the train, near King's Cross, on which bomber Germaine Lindsay killed himself and 26 others. It was the first time the carnage inside the train has been seen by the public.
The roof and floor had been blown apart and wires dangled down across what remained of the mangled carriage.
Detectives were continuing to question a man they arrested yesterday morning who they believe to be Yasin Hassan Omar, the suicide bomber who tried to blow himself up on a Tube train near Warren Street last Thursday.
He was felled with a Taser stun gun after a scuffle with police officers when they raided a maisonette in Heybarnes Road in the Hay Mills area of Birmingham at 4.30am.
Police found a suspect package inside and more than a 100 nearby homes were then evacuated as the bomb squad moved in.
The man believed to be Omar was taken to Paddington Green high security police station in London. Shortly after his arrest, three other men were held in a raid three kilometres away in Bankdale Road, Washwood Heath, Birmingham.
The two raids were carried out by 50 officers from the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch and West Midlands Police.
Anti-terrorist police also raided two houses in north London yesterday morning. The properties in Finchley and Enfield were raided at 6am.
Detectives fear the cell which plotted the failed attacks on the London transport system last Thursday may still be in possession of explosives.
They are investigating reports from neighbours that the day after the attempted bombings some of the group returned to a tower block flat thought to have been used as their bomb factory in New Southgate, north London.
It is also understood police have recovered a large amount of chemical compounds from a lock-up near the tower block which could have been used to make home-made explosives.
Officers believe that if the July 21 bombers had been successful, the loss of life would have been equivalent to or possibly worse than the attacks on July 7.
Two of the July 21 bomb suspects have been named by police as Omar and Muktar Said-Ibrahim, 27.
Said-Ibrahim was jailed at the age of 17 after being convicted for a number of violent muggings.
He had arrived as a refugee with other asylum seekers from Eritrea in east Africa when he was 14.
In November 2003 he applied to become a British citizen and he was given his British passport last September. The Home Office was unable to comment on how he was able to obtain a British passport following his reported conviction and prison sentence.
Omar has also been in Britain for more than 10 years. He arrived from his native Somalia at the age of 12 and in May 2000 was granted indefinite leave to remain.
Electrician Andy Wilkinson, who lives in Heybarnes Road, said he saw the suspect being led out in a white forensic suit with his hands bound by plastic ties.
He said the suspect looked like Omar.
Mr Wilkinson, 41, said: "It was about 5.10am and all we could hear was a right racket people trying to break a door down. I looked out of the window and the road was full of armed police and they had got the road closed off.
"After 10 or 15 minutes they brought a guy out. He looked like the darkest-skinned one in the photos of the four suspects released by the police the one with the curly hair.
"They had him dressed in one of those white suits. He had plastic cuffs on the front and just after he came out, they brought a woman out and she looked Filipino."
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