All Four Bombing Suspects In Custody

LONDON, July 29 -- Police commandos firing tear gas and stun grenades on Friday seized two suspected bombers in London, and authorities in Rome arrested a third, in a dramatic conclusion to the hunt for the four men wanted in last week's failed attacks on London's transit system.

Police officials, who already had one man in custody and feared the others would strike again, were jubilant over the breakthrough. The arrests appear to give them a rare prize: a full cell of alleged terrorists captured alive and unharmed, who could be questioned about possible links between their abortive attacks and the July 7 bombings that killed at least 56 people, including four presumed bombers.

In a day of fast-moving developments, police arrested another man in London's fashionable Notting Hill neighborhood and are investigating whether he was responsible for an unexploded fifth bomb that was found abandoned in a park.

Police remain uncertain as to who else might have aided in the plot. Peter Clarke, head of the counterterrorism branch of London's Metropolitan Police, maintained a cautionary tone after the arrests. "We must not be complacent," he warned in a televised statement. "The threat remains, and is very real. The public must be watchful and alert."

The four suspects are alleged to have carried explosives onto three trains and a bus on July 21 in what investigators called an attempt to replicate the carnage of July 7. But all four bombs failed to explode, and the men fled the scene.

An enormous manhunt ensued, with police blanketing Britain with security camera images of the suspects. One of them, Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, was captured Wednesday in Birmingham. He is accused of trying to blow up a subway train near the Warren Street station.

Friday's drama began late in the morning when police ordered residents of the tranquil, leafy Ladbroke Grove area of West London to evacuate their homes. Dozens of heavily armed officers in flak jackets and chemical suits surrounded an apartment in a red-brick complex and ordered the people inside -- whom they considered potential suicide bombers -- to surrender.

"You must do what we say!" an officer commanded. "You will be safe if you do what you're told!"

"I have rights! I have rights!" a man shouted back, in an exchange that was captured by Lisa Davis, a neighbor, on her cell phone and broadcast on Sky News.

"Mohammed, we've told you to leave twice!" another officer shouted. "Now I want you to leave the flat!"

At one point, the man shouted: "How do I know you're not going to shoot me?"

The siege lasted 20 minutes. At one point, two small children emerged from an apartment one floor below to get a closer look at a police dog and were scooped up by officers and rushed away. At the same time, police officials pleaded with television networks to stop live broadcasts from the scene out of concern the suspects would watch and see the officers' locations.