British police investigating the attempted bombings on London last week this evening confirmed they have arrested one of the suspects behind the attack.
Yasin Hassan Omar
One of the four men arrested earlier today in Birmingham is Yasin Hassan Omar, a 24-year-old Somali suspected of trying to blow up an underground train near Warren Street station.
"I can confirm that one of the men who was arrested in Birmingham was Yasin Hassan Omar," head of the anti-terrorism unit Peter Clarke said this evening.
He said police were still looking for three other suspects.
Omar was subdued during his arrest in the Haymills area of Birmingham by police using a stun gun, which emits a massive but non-lethal charge of electricity and is used to incapacitate suspects.
He was arrested and taken to a high security detention centre in London, thought to be Paddington Green police station.
It is believed a rucksack he was carrying at the time was thrown out of a window by officers.
Police confirmed a suspect package was found during the operation.
The other three men were detained at a separate address in Birmingham and taken to a police station.
The arrests were made in a joint operation involving local police, officers from the London's Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch and members of security services.
The botched bombings last week occurred exactly two weeks after four suicide bombers killed 52 people in a similar attack on London's transport system. Police have linked the suicide bombers to al-Qaeda.
Police have published photos of the four suspects in the July 21st attempted attacks from images captured on closed-circuit television in the hope of tracking down the bombers.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said yesterday the investigation was moving at an astonishing pace but warned that the fugitive bombers could strike again. "They are capable of killing again," Sir Ian said. "We must find them. We are flat out and we are getting a great deal of intelligence."
Meanwhile, a man arrested at Luton airport near London under anti-terrorism laws as he prepared to leave on a Ryanair flight bound for France, has been freed. Police said the man, who has since been allowed to continue his journey to Nimes in France was detained while authorities confirmed his identity.
Newspapers reported today that a prime suspect wanted in the July 21st failed attacks had served a jail sentence for knifepoint robberies.
Muktar Said Ibrahim (27), whom police say planted a bomb on a bus in last week's attempted attacks, was jailed for five years in 1996 for mugging people when he was part of a teenage gang. Ibrahim arrived in Britain from the East African country of Eritrea in 1992.