Police out in force four weeks after London attacks

LONDON - Exactly four weeks after suicide bombers struck the capital, thousands of police took to the streets on Thursday in a high visibility security operation to reassure jittery Londoners.

Underground rail stations were swarming with police, many of them armed, as millions of commuters headed into work.

"It is certainly a very big police operation today," said Deputy Chief Constable Andy Trotter.

"We are all working together to have high visibility patrols both on the overground mainline stations and down on the Tube (underground railway) system," he told BBC Radio.

"We are out there to reassure Londoners and also to deter any further attacks."

Trotter said there had been no specific intelligence but London was on a very high state of alert four weeks to the day after the first attacks.

The Piccadilly underground railway line was fully operational for the first time since four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in attacks on three trains and a bus.

In a second wave of attacks two weeks after the first, four bombs failed to detonate and, after the biggest manhunt in the country's history, four suspects were arrested, including one seized in Rome.

"The return of the Piccadilly line is a major step as the Underground and London gets back to normal," London Underground managing director Tim O'Toole said.

Officials said passenger numbers had dropped by up to 15 percent on weekdays on the sharply reduced network and by up to 30 percent at the weekend.

City police have warned that the threat of a new attack is "very real" from other militant cells.

The police operation after the attacks - one of the biggest ever seen in the capital - is costing an extra £500,000 a day, officials have said.

NERVES FRAYED

Undercover officers mingled with commuters trying to spot any would-be bombers while the massive coverage by uniformed officers was designed to make people feel safer.

Nerves in London are still frayed. Panicked passengers smashed windows and jumped from the top of a double-decker bus in central London on Tuesday after a small fire developed amid fears of another attack.

Police briefly sealed off part of the city after smoke was seen billowing from the bus, but lifted the alert after nothing suspicious was found.

A 23-year-old man arrested in connection with the July 21 failed attacks has been charged under the country's terrorism laws.

Ismael Abdurahman, who is due in court on Thursday, is the first person to be charged as part of the investigation into the attacks but is not one of the four men suspected of trying to set off the bombs.

He has been charged with hindering the police investigation by protecting a possible suspect, police said.

Police believe all four men they were hunting over the failed July 21 bombings on three underground trains and a bus have now been captured.

Three are in custody in Britain, a fourth in Rome.

Britain has formally requested that Italy extradite Hamdi Issac, arrested last week in Rome, and officials say they hope the process will be completed by the end of the year.

- REUTERS