LONDON, Aug 1: Police in London were out in force on Monday, maintaining a high alert as they hunted for the masterminds behind two waves of terror attacks and awaited news of a bid to extradite a suspected bomber from Rome. Anxious to thwart any other plots, detectives were probing whether there was a network or networks behind the failed bombings on July 21 and the deadliest ever terror attack on Britain on July 7, both on London subway trains and buses.

The Times newspaper said another bombing squad, linked to the four suspected July 7 suicide attackers, was plotting a third attack on the capital but police at Scotland Yard played down the report as “speculation”.

Nevertheless, officers were deployed in large numbers around the city, hoping to calm fears among commuters.

“It is a continuation of the high profile policy we started after July 7,” said a spokesman for the British Transport Police, referring to the higher police presence here since suspected Al Qaeda bombers slaughtered 52 people. In a fast-moving investigation, police arrested seven more people Sunday in southern England over the botched July 21 attacks, when an attempt to repeat the carnage of July 7 was frustrated by faulty bombs that failed to go off properly.

The arrests brought the total number of people in custody over the attacks to 19, including one key suspect in Italy.

The suspect captured in Rome on Friday — Hamdi Issac, also known as Osman Hussain — is one of four men accused of the July 21 attack. The other three suspects are already behind bars in London.

Britain was expected to deliver papers requesting Issac’s extradition on Monday — a move which the 27-year-old has reportedly vowed to resist.

The Ethiopian-born Briton is the target of a European arrest warrant issued by Britain, and is also suspected of “international terrorism,” an offence created in Italy following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

Italian authorities are also holding two of Issac’s brothers but police in Rome said his support network was not considered to be part of an organised terrorist web.

Investigations into his behaviour and contacts “lead us to believe as very probable that he belongs to a spontaneous group rather than a structured organisation,” police official Carlo De Stefano told a news conference in Rome.

Detectives in London’s high-security Paddington Green police station were interrogating the other three alleged July 21 bombers — Eritrean-born Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, Somali-born Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, and Ramzi Mohammed, whose age and ethnic background have not been released.

Ibrahim and Mohammed were arrested in a west London flat during a raid by heavily armed elite police on Friday. Hassan Omar was arrested Wednesday in a pre-dawn raid on a house in the central English city of Birmingham.

Police have warned that despite the arrest of all four suspected July 21 bombers, the threat of further attacks remained “very real”.

They are intent on tracking down the ringleaders: the chemists who made the explosive mixture used in the bombs, the technicians who put them together and the ideologues who inspired them.

“There were quite a few other people involved in the incidents of the 7th and the 21st. It’s extremely likely there will be other people involved in harbouring, financing and making the devices,” a police spokeswoman said.

British authorities have also said they are seeking access to a man — described by US and British media as a senior Al Qaeda figure and the ringleader of the July 7 attacks — who is being held in Zambia.

A Zambian interior ministry official said extradition documents had been signed allowing British national Haroon Aswat, 31, who was arrested on July 20 in Lusaka, to be handed over to British authorities.

Aswat is also reportedly wanted by US authorities over alleged attempts to set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon.—AFP