Last suspects in failed bombings nabbed
(AP)
Updated: 2005-07-30 08:40

LONDON - Police swooped down on a posh London neighborhood and traced cellphone calls across Europe to a Rome hide-out Friday, netting the remaining suspects in the failed transit bombings without firing a shot. The arrests capped an eight-day manhunt that was one of the most extensive in British history, AP reported.

At least three of the four suspects were of East African origin.

Black-clad police armed with stun grenades and gas masks pointed assault rifles at the doors of suspects on the outskirts of Notting Hill. Two young children stumbled into the standoff a floor below a suspects' apartment, and an armed officer tried to shoo them away from his dog.

Above them, a police team shouting for "Mohammed" forced two suspects to strip to their underwear and eventually emerge onto a narrow balcony, where television cameras recorded them with their hands above their heads.

In Rome, police arrested a Somali-born British citizen at the apartment of his brother, who was also taken into custody. On Friday night, a police expert — wearing white gloves and a jumpsuit to avoid contaminating possible evidence — could be seen working inside a lighted room in the apartment.

Images captured on closed-circuit television cameras during the failed July 21 attacks helped lead investigators to the men, and interrogations of the suspect captured first, 24-year-old Yasin Hassan Omar, may have helped as well. Police said the anti-terrorist sweeps have been part of their most extensive investigation ever.