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| Africa: North |
| More on el-Nashar's arrest |
| 2005-07-16 |
| The alleged bomb-maker in the July 7 London terror attacks has been arrested in Cairo, where he is being interrogated, Egyptian officials said yesterday. They named the man as 33-year-old Magdy El Nashar and said he had been arrested âseveral days agoâ. The did not give any further details. British police said yesterday they were âawareâ of an arrest in Egypt in connection with the investigation into last weekâs London bombings. âWe are aware of an arrest made in Cairo but are not prepared to discuss if we may or may not wish to interview (the person) in connection with this investigation,â a spokeswoman for Londonâs Metropolitan Police said. The US network ABC News reported the arrest earlier yesterday, saying Nashar is the alleged bomb-maker behind the attacks on three Underground trains and a double-decker bus that killed at least 54 people and injured some 700. Citing sources including the FBI, ABC said the detained man helped set up the attackersâ bomb factory and left Britain two weeks before the blasts. Previous reports in Britain said police were seeking a man with a similar name who had been studying for a doctorate in chemistry at Leeds University, in the same city where three of the suspected bombers lived. A British grant-awarding group said yesterday it had given the man financial support to pursue research which had an industrial application. The Times of London said El Nashar was thought to have rented one of the homes police searched in Leeds in a series of raids on Tuesday. Neighbours reported El Nashar recently left Britain, saying he had a visa problem, the newspaper said. Leeds University said El Nashar arrived in October 2000 to do biochemical research, sponsored by the National Research Centre in Cairo, Egypt. It said he earned a doctorate on May 6 El Nashar left Egypt in late 1999 for the United States, where he spent a semester at North Carolina State as a graduate student in chemical engineering for a semester beginning in January 2000. Meanwhile, Pakistani security forces investigating connections with the London blasts detained four suspects in Faisalabad yesterday. An intelligence official in Pakistan earlier revealed one of the suicide bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, met two years ago in Faisalabad with a member of Al Qaeda, now in custody for bombing a church in Islamabad in 2002. âThe security agencies have picked up four people. They were taken to an undisclosed location, but we were not involved in this operation,â a Faisalabad police official said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |