LONDON: The British counterterrorism police seized three men on Thursday for offenses related to the London bombings — the first arrests since four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 travelers on the London transit system on July 7, 2005.

Two of the men, aged 23 and 30, were arrested around 1 p.m. Thursday at Manchester Airport in the northwest of England as they were preparing to board a flight to Pakistan. A third man, 26, was arrested at a house in Leeds three hours later, the police said. Several of the July 7 bombers had close links to Leeds.

The arrests were presented by the police as evidence and vindication of a painstaking inquiry since July 2005 to establish whether the London bombers, who exploded backpack bombs on three subway cars and a double-decker bus, had accomplices or worked for a shadowy mastermind.

The arrests on Thursday renewed speculation that the attacks could not have been committed without sophisticated back-up.

The police moved in at a delicate time in an array of counterterrorism inquiries. Six men are currently on trial following failed bombings in London on July 21, 2005.

It is not clear whether there are links between any of these cases.

An official parliamentary report last year into the July 7 attacks said two of the suspected leaders, Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, had been observed by the British security services before the July 7 bombings and had been in contact with figures from Al Qaeda in Pakistan. But the two men had not been closely monitored because of other pressing counterterrorism inquiries.

After the arrests Thursday, a police spokeswoman, speaking in return for customary anonymity, said five houses in the Beeston area of Leeds, where three of the four July 7 bombers had lived, were being searched along with properties in East London.

"Since July 7, 2005, when 52 people were murdered, detectives have continued to pursue many lines of inquiry both here in the U.K. and overseas," the spokeswoman said.

"This remains a painstaking investigation with a substantial amount of information being analyzed and investigated. As we have said previously, we are determined to follow the evidence wherever it takes us to identify any other person who may have been involved, in any way, in the terrorist attacks.

"We need to know who else, apart from the bombers, knew what they were planning. Did anyone encourage them? Did anyone help them with money, or accommodation?"

The arrests Thursday seemed once again to highlight links between suspected British terrorists and Pakistan, the home of many immigrants to Britain in the 1960s whose descendants form the bulk of 1.6 million-plus Muslim minority in the country.

Since the July 7 attacks there has been little outward sign of progress in the police effort to determine whether the bombers on that day, who committed Britain's worst peacetime atrocity, had support or back-up in the planning of their attack.

During investigations immediately after the bombings, the police found a car parked with explosives in the trunk. In the period since July 2005, the British police have rounded up many more suspects in different cases, including a group of men said to have been planning to use liquid explosives to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners last August.

Last November, MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence agency, said it was keeping about 1,600 suspects in 200 terrorist cells under surveillance. It also said that about 30 terrorist conspiracies were under investigation and that "tomorrow's threat may include the use of chemicals, bacteriological agents, radioactive materials and even nuclear technology."

Only last January, the police rounded up terrorism suspects in Birmingham who were accused of plotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim solider on leave from Afghanistan.

Shahid Malik, a Labour legislator whose constituency includes Beeston, urged Britons not to allow extremists in their midst to create division.

"The important thing is that mainstream Britain must stay united in the face of extremist threats that exist out there," he said in a statement.

The three men arrested Thursday were brought to a high-security police station in west London for questioning. Under new counterterrorism laws, the police have 28 days to question them without bringing charges.

In the separate court hearings Thursday into the attempted bombings on July 21, 2005, — just two weeks after the attack on July 7 left London tense — two of the six suspects on trial make accusations against each other.

One man, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, said that Muktar Said Ibrahim, a co-defendant, had plotted to booby-trap an apartment in a housing project so that bombs would detonate when the police arrived to search the building. Asiedu also accused Ibrahim of depicting the July 21 attempts, when explosives apparently failed to detonate, as a "copycat" after the July 7 bombings.

Stephen Kamlish, Asiedu's lawyer, said his client had "broken ranks" with the other defendants. He sat apart from them in court.

Kamlish accused Ibrahim of planning to attack with "four real bombs" and to ensure that a housing project was destroyed, going up in a ball of flames.

"That was your plan, wasn't it?" Kamlish said. "We say your 21/7 bombs were to be bigger and better in your twisted thinking than that of 7/7."

But Ibrahim denied the allegation.

"This is totally not true. I do not know why Asiedu is making these accusations," he said. All six defendants have denied charges of conspiracy to murder.

In Leeds on Thursday, where the police searched houses, officers said they were trying to avoid accusations that they were singling out Muslims. Last year, after police officers stormed a house in Forest Gate, East London, shooting and wounding one of two Muslim brothers they arrested, the case triggered widespread complaints among Muslims when both men were freed without being charged with offenses.

"West Yorkshire Police officers are meeting with local people to keep them informed and provide reassurance to the wider community, and we thank them for their continuing support whilst the investigation takes place," the Leeds police said in a written statement.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/22/news/brits.php?page=1