Wednesday, July 27 2005 17:37 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: In pre-dawn raids, police investigating a series of failed attacks on London's transport system today (July 27, 2005) arrested four men in the city of Birmingham and media reports said that one of the suspected bombers could be among those held.

The four men were arrested in Birmingham under the Terrorism Act 2000, West Midlands Police said, adding a suspect package was also found during one of the raids in the east of the city.

'Explosives' experts were examining the package.

Security sources told BBC that one of the four men held by anti-terror police in Birmingham could be a suspect in the July 21 failed attacks on the transit system in London.

He was arrested after being shot with a Taser stun gun but no firearms were used, police said. The suspect has been taken to London for questioning.

The man was held in Heybarnes road in the Hay Mills area of Birmingham at 04.30 am (0900 IST) following a joint operation by West Midlands police and officers from the Metropolitanle Road in Washwood Heath in Birmingham overnight.

Police did not confirm the report that one of the four men arrested could be a suspected bomber.

Another two men were arrested late last night at Grantham railway station under the Prevention of Terrorism Act as they travelled from Newcastle to Kings Cross, Lincolnshire Police said.

Two men arrested following information from two off-duty Metropolitan Police

The two men were arrested following information from two off-duty Metropolitan Police officers who were travelling on the train.

The Birmingham raids are thought to be of major significance in the hunt for the July 21 bombers.

Detectives have been working round-the-clock to track down the four amid fears they may try and launch another attack.

Also, it has emerged that Muktar Said Ibrahim (27), one of the four suspects in the failed attacks, was granted a British passport despite a criminal record for violence.

It also emerged that his parents identified him to police after his CCTV pictures were released.

Luton Crown Court jailed Ibrahim for five years when he was 17 for being part of a gang that carried out a series of muggings at knifepoint at Hertfordshire railway station.

One former friend said he turned to radical Islam while in prison.

He qualified for early release in 1998 and was then alleged to have met Richard Reid, the jailed 'shoe bomber' at two London mosques. Reid, who was also a petty criminal, tried to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic in 2001.

Immigration officials disclosed that Ibrahim and another suspect Yasin Hassan Omar (24) came to Britain as child refugees.

Omar came from Somalia as a 10-year-old in 1992. Ibrahim arrived with his parents the same year from Eritrea, aged 14.

Barely ten months ago, Ibrahim swore allegiance to the Crown when he became a British citizen.

Police were investigating how Ibrahim was granted citizenship with a criminal record. A key condition of naturalisation is that applicants should be 'of good character'.

Officers also wanted to know if he applied for citizenship in order to obtain a British passport.

Britain's biggest manhunt went into its sixth day as the detectives felt a fifth bomber is on the loose. He is believed to have discarded his bomb in a park near Wormwood Scrubs prison and Scientists said it contained the same type of explosives as those used in the botched attacks.

The Birmingham arrests would bring to nine the number of people had been arrested

The Birmingham arrests would bring to nine the number of people who police said, had been arrested in connection with the July 21 failed attacks. Police was questioning the five people arrested last week.

It was not clear if the other two arrested while travelling in a train had anything to do with the attacks.

Part of the area in Birmingham from where the suspect package was found was evacuated.

Police had released photographs of all four July 21 suspected bombers and identified two Ibrahim and Omar.

A flat in north London, linked by police to Ibrahim and Omar, was being searched and police said chemicals found there and in a garage might have been for explosives.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair said the men could carry out another attack. "They are capable of killing again," he told Channel Four News.

"We must find them.We are flat out and we are getting a great deal of intelligence."

The July 21 attacks had come two weeks after the blasts in the transport system here that killed 56 people, including four bombers.