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| Britain |
| UK may be facing a network of bombmaking factories |
| 2005-07-24 |
| TERRORISTS behind the attempted bomb attacks in London last week may have gone on a whitewater rafting trip with two of the July 7 suicide bombers just weeks before the first attacks. Detectives were last night investigating the possible link between the two terrorist cells after receiving intelligence that suggested the two groups shared the adventure holiday. Mohammad Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, who blew themselves up on the Edgeware Road and Aldgate Tube trains, rode rapids at Canofan Tryweryn, the National Whitewater Centre in Bala, North Wales just a few weeks before launching their devastating attack. Photographs of the trip showed Khan raising a two-fingered V for Victory sign while Tanweer laughed. Officers now believe that several people connected to addresses they are investigating in relation to last week's attempted bombings may also have been on the trip. Last night police continued to question a pair of suspects who they believe are two of the four bombers who went on the run after Thursday's failed attacks. Both were arrested in the Stockwell area of London on Friday, close to where a third man, Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot dead by police officers as he ran on to a Tube train. Yesterday afternoon, armed police swooped on a flat in the leafy Tulse Hill area of the capital. Frightened residents reported hearing eight gunshots as officers carrying submachine guns entered the first-floor flat before CS gas canisters were fired inside. Paul King, 37, who lives next door, said he had been watching television when police phoned his flat. "They told us to get out fast and when we looked out the window the street was swarming with armed police. We came out with our hands on our heads.. "I then heard the sound of gunshots, around eight or 10 shots, before it went quiet for about 10 minutes. Then there were a few more shots." The flat was last night being searched by forensics officers. Meanwhile, a suspicious package was found in north-west London which may be linked to the four bombs recovered since Thursday's attempted attack. Scotland Yard said the package was found by a member of the public in bushes in the Little Wormwood Scrubs. The find followed a series of security alerts across the city. The alarm first sounded on the Tube network when emergency services were called to Mile End station after passengers smelled burning. Police sources later described the incident as "amounting to nothing". The Metropolitan Police confirmed yesterday that a second arrest in Stockwell late on Friday was "in connection with inquiries" into Thursday's attacks. Both suspects, whose identities have not been released, are being questioned at the high-security Paddington Green police station, but speculation was mounting that they are the Hackney bus and the Oval bombers. The armed raid in Harrow Road, West Kilburn, on Friday is believed to have been in connection with the Shepherd's Bush suspect. Under anti-terrorism legislation the men can be held for up to 14 days before they must be charged or released. But Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said yesterday that he was "extremely pleased" with the progress of the investigation. Detectives are now desperately attempting to prevent al-Qaeda plunging London into a summer of fear with a campaign of bombing attacks on the capital's transport infrastructure and key landmarks. Scotland Yard and intelligence chiefs are hunting a series of radical Islamist terrorists cells they believe are planning up to a dozen further strikes following two waves of attacks in the last fortnight. Investigators fear they are facing a network of "bomb-making factories" across the country, capable of making hundreds of pounds of homemade explosives to sustain a bombing campaign throughout the summer. The cells, independent from each other but operating within the al-Qaeda framework, are understood to have been supplied with the materials to make the devices by a centralised distribution system. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #10 'Struth, Tony. Mr. Wife took a business trip up to Newcastle, and when he got into the taxi, the language sounded so foreign to him that his engineer's mind caused him to answer in German. They'd got halfway to the office before the darling realized that Geordie is actually an English dialect... even funnier when you know that he spent a good half his career in places like India and the Middle East, where the English sounds nothing like the Mid-Atlantic version we grew up with. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-07-24 22:25 |
| #9 Course you do me old china! - you say toMAYto, I sez tumarta, you say poTAYto, I sez chips! ;) Just be careful where abouts in the country you go to - some of the accents are inpenetrable! |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2005-07-24 22:00 |
| #8 Cheeze, one reason I don't visit England is because I don't speak the language... |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H. 2005-07-24 21:56 |
| #7 Oh! Thanks T. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-07-24 19:54 |
| #6 Shipman, Old Bill == Rozzers == The Filth (not in polite usage) == Flat foots == Coppers. |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2005-07-24 19:15 |
| #5 Ima country, what's Old Bill? The nickname of a turnstile? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-07-24 17:28 |
| #4 White water rafting trips are great for bonding and building team spirit. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-07-24 15:32 |
| #3 Whaddya mean "may be facing"? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-07-24 13:42 |
| #2 "Paul King, 37, who lives next door, said he had been watching television when police phoned his flat. "They told us to get out fast and when we looked out the window the street was swarming with armed police. We came out with our hands on our heads.." That's odd. My first impulse would be to don a winter coat, run past the Old Bill towards the Tube, jump the turnstile, and hop on the train! |
| Posted by: JDB 2005-07-24 13:13 |
| #1 Not surprising. Check names of personnel in any Chem research lab in the West, and you will find a high percentage of Muslimutts. They are sucking the blood out of the West. |
| Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler 2005-07-24 12:41 |