UK police charge two suspects over failed Underground attacks

LONDON - British police have charged two more men with attempted murder and conspiracy in the failed bid to bomb London's transport system on July 21.

Grainy pictures of the two men were broadcast worldwide and splashed across front pages of newspapers after police named them and two others as their main suspects in the July 21 attacks, in which rucksack bombs were left on three trains and a bus. The devices failed to go off and did not hurt anyone.

The botched attacks came exactly two weeks after four British Muslim suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 others in similar attacks on trains and a bus in central London.

Ibrahim Muktar Said, 27, and Ramzi Mohammed, 23, were charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to murder and explosives offences. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

They were arrested on July 29 when armed police raided a housing estate in west London during the biggest London police operation since World War Two.

On Saturday, Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, the first of the four main suspects named by police in their investigation into the July 21 attacks, was charged.

A fourth man, Hamdi Issac, also known as Osman Hussein, was arrested in Rome and has indicated through his lawyer that he will fight extradition to Britain.

London police said another man, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 32, was charged on Sunday with conspiracy to murder and with explosives offences.

A police source said he was the man dubbed the suspected "Fifth Bomber" in British newspapers, after a rucksack containing explosives was found discarded in a London park a few days after the July 21 attacks.

Two others, named as Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali, 30, and Wharbi Mohammed, 22, were charged with helping people to resist arrest. All those charged will appear at the high-security Belmarsh court in east London later today.

British security services, meanwhile, are investigating a Saudi link to the July 7 bombers.

A Saudi security source told Reuters that officials in Riyadh had told British intelligence services of a series of text messages and emails sent to Britain by suspects in Saudi Arabia, including Moroccans Abdulkarim el-Mejjati and Younis al-Hayyari, over a period of several months earlier this year.

The source said information from the interrogation of suspects also revealed several references to Britain, but no proof of a link between militants in Saudi Arabia and the London attacks.

"That's what we're still trying to find out. Either they were (linked to the bombings) or there is another network there," he said, adding that suspects in Saudi Arabia had also sent money to Britain.

Mejjati, who the Saudis say was also linked to bombings in Casablanca and Madrid, was killed in a gunfight with Saudi security forces three months before the London bombings.

Hayyari was shot dead on July 3 in Riyadh.

Security experts have said the July 7 bombers must have had support, but how much, and who and where from, remain unclear.

In Riyadh, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told a news conference there was constant contact with British authorities.

"I'm sure there is some information that may be linked to the events in England," he said. "They have also passed information that was important to some of the incidents here." In a separate development, Zambia extradited suspected British militant Haroon Rashid Aswad to Britain on Sunday, but British police have said he is not thought to have been involved in the July 7 attacks.

He was arrested on arrival under a US extradition warrant which accuses him of conspiring to set up a militant training camp in Oregon. He is due to appear in a London court later today.

- REUTERS