4 Arrested in 2005 London Transit Bombings

NEW YORK TIMES

LONDON, May 9 — British police today arrested three men and the widow of a suicide bomber involved in the terror attack on the London transit system in 2005 on suspicion they helped in the atrocity that killed 52 people.

Three of the early morning arrests, the second round of arrests in six weeks in connection with the attack, were in the West Yorkshire region of Britain where three of the four suicide bombers lived, and the fourth was in the West Midlands region.

The arrests suggested that after a long period of investigation, with little early success, the police were beginning to piece together how the plot worked and who else, aside from the four suicide bombers, was responsible.

In a stern message last month, Peter Clarke, the chief of counterterrorism at Scotland Yard, said that his investigators would soon catch up with others who, he said, had been aware of the planning of the 2005 attack.

The arrests today appeared to be the result of the investigations that Mr. Clarke referred to.

For a long time, it seemed the authorities would be unable to charge anyone with the transit attacks, which caused the worst peace-time casualty toll in Britain’s history.

But the latest arrests, together with the arrests of three men in late March, are changing the presumption that the bombers took the secrets of their plan with them.

Now, the details of the organization behind the attack, both in Britain and in Pakistan where two of the suicide bombers traveled, could be publicized at a trial. It is unlikely, however, that those arrested today masterminded the plot, analysts said.

For the British authorities, the arrests presented a respite from the furor surrounding disclosures last week that the security services knew about two of the suicide bombers in the 2005 attack — Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer — more than a year before they unleashed their bombs.

Those arrested today included Hasina Patel, 29, who was married to the suicide bomber, Mr. Khan, and Khalid Khaliq, who lived in the same street as Mr. Tanweer.

Police did not release the names of two other men, who were described as being in their 20s and 30s. They, together with Ms. Patel and Mr. Khaliq, are suspected of commissioning, preparing or instigating acts of terror, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police in London, said. They were being held at a central London police station for questioning, he said.

Analysts said Ms. Patel was being questioned as to what knowledge she had before the attack took place.

Under a British terrorism law enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, people who know about a planned terror attack are obliged to tell the authorities or face prosecution.

But successfully prosecuting such cases has proven difficult. When a British citizen of Pakistani background, Asif Mohammed Hanif, blew himself up in an attack outside a café in Tel Aviv in 2003, his sister, wife and brother were arrested in Britain and charged for not telling the authorities what they knew about Mr. Hanif’s plans. In a landmark trial, all three were found not guilty.

In contrast to earlier arrests, the West Yorkshire police made the morning arrests in a low key way, using local officers and fewer officers than in similar arrests in the past.

During earlier arrests connected with terror cases that have involved British suspects of Pakistani descent, there have been complaints from communities of overbearing police operations.

The arrests today took place in Dewsbury; Beeston, an area near Leeds where several of the 2005 suicide bombers lived; and Birmingham.

Police said searches were continuing in connection with the arrests at five addresses in West Yorkshire and one place in Birmingham.

The three British men of Pakistani origin arrested in late March in the Beeston area of West Yorkshire were charged in early April with conspiring to help in the transit attacks. They are Mohammed Shakil, 30; Sadeer Saleem, 26; and Shipon Ullah, 23.

Mr. Shakil and Mr. Ullah were arrested at Manchester airport moments before boarding a plane for Pakistan.