London, May 9
Four persons were arrested today by the anti-terror police in connection with the July 7 bombings in London in which 52 people were killed. Two men and a woman were arrested in West Yorkshire while another man was arrested in the West Midlands.

They were held on suspicion of commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act, 2000. All four suspects were taken to a central London police station. Two flats in Birmingham were also searched, the Metropolitan Police said. The fourth man arrested is a 22-year-old.

“This was a pre-planned, intelligence-led operation involving the Metropolitan Police Service’s Counter Terrorism Command and the counter terrorism units in West Yorkshire and the West Midlands,” a police spokesman said.

“We are continuing a painstaking investigation with a substantial amount of information being analysed and investigated,” he added.

Fifty-two people were killed when four suicide bombers set off devices in three packed rush hour London underground tube trains and a crowded bus in 2005.

The bombers - Mohammed Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Jermaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain - all died in the attacks. Last month, three men became the first people to appear in court, charged with conspiring with the four terrorists.

Mohammed Shakil (30), Sadeer Saleem (26) and Waheed Ali (23) from Beeston, Leeds, were arrested in March. — PTI

Toronto, May 9
Air India had warned Canadian authorities about bomb threats so often in the early 1980s that officials believed the airline was simply trying to get extra police security at no cost, the Kanishka bombing inquiry was told.

The inquiry commission heard of a warning sent from Air India to its international affiliates, including Toronto and Montreal, a warning that talked of a possible hijacking, but the Canadian authorities did not take it seriously.

At a meeting of Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Justice Department and Transport Canada officials in January 1986, officials discussed the concerns Air India supposedly raised before almost every flight that took off during a two-year period in the early 1980s.

The details of the meeting -- which took place after Air India Flight 182 blew up in 1985 -- was chronicled in a memo written by Warren Sweeney, a former RCMP intelligence analyst who testified at the inquiry in Ottawa yesterday.

Anil Kapoor, one of the lawyers for the inquiry, read the memo out during Sweeney's testimony.

"It was learned that every flight was preceded by a letter outlining a threat to Air India," Kapoor read.

"It was thought by the people present [at the meeting] that this was Air India's way of having increased security for their flights at no cost to them."

Kapoor asked Sweeney if the memo was an accurate account of the meeting, and Sweeney said it was.

Testifying before the commission, John Henry, a former security officer submitted that Canada's spy agency hardly ever collected enough details to categorise any terrorist threat as a "specific" one in the months leading up to the 1985 Air India bombing.

"When we used the term 'specific,' it meant that we had something that we could pass on and (police) could act upon it," John testified.

"However, in most cases we had nothing specific."

The terminology is important because for more than two decades the federal government has insisted that police and security forces had no advance intelligence indicating a specific threat to Air India Flight 182.

Former diplomat James Bartleman triggered a storm last week when he contradicted that mantra, insisting he had seen an electronic intercept just days before the bombing suggesting Air India would be targeted by Sikh extremists on the coming weekend.

During Henry's testimony, the inquiry also heard of an RCMP memo detailing a June 15, 1985, phone call to the Air India ticket office in Toronto.

A caller, identified as a soft-spoken Indian male in his 20s, warned that an Air India aircraft was to be sabotaged, but gave no further specifics. The caller, who wouldn't leave any contact information, said he wanted to pass along the information because his friends and family members used the airline. — PTI

Washington, May 9
Indicating a possibility that elements of the AQ Khan network may be lying low, waiting to strike, senior fellow of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Mark Fitzpatrick kicked off the American presentation of the latest report of the organisation here.

During the presentation, ‘Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, AQ Khan and the Rise of Proliferation Networks: A Net Assessment’, Fitzpatrick said several individuals involved in the nuclear racketeering were yet to be imprisoned or detained.

When asked to comment on George Tenet's claim in his recent book that the AQ Khan network has been shut down, he said, “He (George Tenet) is repeating what President Bush said in 2004. It is clear that the network has been rolled up and key members have been put out of business, but they haven't all been imprisoned,” Fitzpatrick said.

“There are unknown elements of the network that have not been rolled up. If you count all of the people who have been detained, there are undoubtedly some out there, lying low and ready to resume illicit supply if the price is high enough,” the former senior State Department official, said. Fitzpatrick pointed out that as of now, there was no direct link between al Qaeda and AQ Khan personally.

“There are additional ways to get the information on AQ Khan and our understanding is that these additional ways have been pursued,” Fitzpatrick said. The IISS Report, which was released in London last week, has argued that many techniques perfected by Khan were replicated by other countries. “Pakistan has not been the only country to engage the private sector in nuclear technology to further a military programme. Others include Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and to a lesser degree, India,” the IISS has claimed. — PTI

Los Angeles, May 9
One person was killed and two others wounded after a college student opened fire at a campus apartment complex in northern California, police said today.

The shooting incident took place late yesterday near the campus of California State University in Fresno, 352 kilometres northeast of Los Angeles.

The shooter, identified by local media as a 19-year-old criminology student, was holed up inside the apartment early today with police negotiators attempting to end the stand-off.

“The Fresno police department has indicated that campus is safe for classes,” the statement said. — APF