This Is Dumb

The Associated Press

Updated: 3:03 a.m. ET July 28, 2005

LONDON - Anti-terrorist officers investigating the July 21 attempted attacks in the British capital arrested nine men in south London Thursday.

Scotland Yard police headquarters said the men were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 at two properties in the neighborhood of Tooting. They were being held in a central London police station.

News of the arrest comes after British police arrested a Somali-born man suspected of being one of four men behind the botched attacks one week ago.

None of those arrested Thursday are believed to be among the would-be July 21 bombers, British TV reported.

On Wednesday, Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, was carted to a top-security police station in London. A key official called the arrest significant Ð'-- but warned that until all the bombers were in custody, the threat remained.

Dozens of anti-terrorist police and bomb disposal experts, some in heavy body armor, swept into a neighborhood of Britain's second-largest city to arrest Omar, a Somali citizen with British residency who is suspected in the botched July 21 attack on the Warren Street subway station.

"They had him dressed in one of those white suits. He had plastic cuffs on the front," said one neighbor, Andy Wilkinson, who recognized Omar from police images of suspects. Police use such suits to preserve physical evidence that may be on a suspect.

Police also detained three other men at a house about two miles away, saying the arrests were linked to the second set of failed bombings, but declining further comment. In all, 11 suspects are being held, though only Omar is thought to be one of the bombers, police said