Italian police see suspect in attack as an amateur
ROME -- The London bombing suspect arrested in Rome last week was more probably part of a loose group of amateurs than an Islamist militant ring, Italian police said yesterday, as Britain sought his extradition.
Investigators in Rome said Hamdi Issac, also known as Osman Hussein, did not fit the profile of a member of a large and organized insurgent network.
''Concerning Hamdi, we are presented with details that very likely appear more part of an impromptu group than a structured organization that had broader terrorist projects," said Carlo De Stefano, head of Italy's antiterrorism police forces.
De Stefano told reporters that Issac was cooperating with authorities. Two of his brothers have been arrested in Italy on lesser charges.
British police, who believe that all four men they were hunting over the failed July 21 bombings on three underground trains and a bus have now been captured, want to question Issac as soon as possible.
The other three are in custody in London after an international manhunt for suspected Islamist militants culminated in a swoop on a housing estate in west London on Friday and the arrest in Rome.
British detectives are now questioning 20 people arrested as part of the probe into the attacks, the biggest operation for London's police since World War II.
Police in south London yesterday arrested two men under antiterrorism laws. The men were arrested during police searches of properties in the Clapham area and nearby Stockwell, where police shot dead a Brazilian man they mistook for a suspected suicide bomber on July 22.
Amateur video footage broadcast on the BBC showed armed police wearing black masks surrounding a man pinned against the front of a red-brick house in Stockwell.
More arrests were expected as police scour the country for anyone who may have helped the bombers.
Officers, who warn that more terrorist cells could be at large, were out in force on London's streets.
The July 21 attempted bombings occurred two weeks after four young British Muslim men killed themselves and 52 other people with bombs, also on three underground trains and a bus.
