From CNN
Police hunting London bombers shoot man in station
By Katherine Baldwin
LONDON (Reuters) - Police shot a man dead at a London underground rail station on Friday during a hunt for bombers who struck two weeks after suicide attacks killed 52 rush-hour commuters.
The latest round of bombs, at Thursday lunchtime, caused chaos but killed no one, in an apparently failed bid to repeat the July 7 attacks and unsettle a capital made increasingly tense by bomb scares and other security alerts.
In west London, residents reported armed police taking control of Harrow Road and ordering people off the street on Friday afternoon.
Commuter Teri Godly told how she had stood next to the suspected suicide bomber on Friday morning before police charged in and shot the man time and again.
"A tall Asian guy, shaved head, slight beard, with a rucksack got in front of me. Shortly after that, as I was about to get onto the train, eight or nine undercover police with walkie talkies and handguns started screaming at everyone to 'get out, get out'," she told Sky News television.
Witnesses spoke of panic as a man of Asian appearance wearing a heavy jacket vaulted over barriers at Stockwell station on Friday as he was chased, tackled then shot.
"I've never seen anything like it in my life. I saw them kill a man basically. I saw them shoot a man five times," witness Mark Whitby told BBC television.
"The other passengers were distraught. It was just mayhem, people were just getting off the Tube ... People running in all directions, looks of horror on their faces, screaming, a lot of screaming from women, absolute mayhem," he added.
Media reports said the man shot was a suspected suicide bomber -- possibly one of four on the run after the attacks.
"We can confirm that just after 10 a.m. armed officers entered Stockwell Tube station. A man was challenged by officers and subsequently shot. London Ambulance Service attended the scene. He was pronounced dead at the scene," police said.
Police cordoned off streets around the station and took witnesses away for questioning.
RESPONSIBILITY CLAIM
Witnesses said there was confusion before the shooting as shocked passengers tried to work out what was happening. One man spoke of a strange smell that seemed to be coming from a smoking bag on the train.
The Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade, an al Qaeda-linked group that claimed responsibility for the July 7 bombings, posted a statement on an Islamist Web site on Friday claiming it carried out Thursday's attacks.
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to London and former spy chief Prince Turki al Faisal said the attacks bore the classic touch of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
As forensics experts searched the three underground trains and a double-decker bus hit by the small, near-simultaneous explosions, police were called to a series of security alerts.
There was a flurry of bomb scares across the city. In Harrow Road, a witness told BBC television that he saw many police and remote-controlled trucks.
"There's what looks like a bomb disposal-type vehicle, armored, and there's several armed officers around it," Houst Monfaradi said.
As the manhunt intensified on Friday, commuters got back onto buses and underground trains, vowing to continue their normal routines despite a second wave of attacks in two weeks.
"I would still get the tube. If your number is up, your number is up," said Elisa Blackborough, traveling to work at a bank in the city of London financial district.
A union official warned however that hundreds of underground train drivers might refuse to work if there were more attacks.
In New York, commuters faced random searches of backpacks and packages as police stepped up checks.
MORE CLUES
British police have more clues from Thursday's attacks, including the unexploded bombs, witness reports and CCTV footage, than they had after the July 7 suicide bombs that killed 52 commuters and the four bombers and wounded 700.
Security experts warned there could be more attacks and police used the occasion to call for sweeping new powers, including being allowed to hold terrorism suspects for up to three months without charge.
The pound fell against the dollar and the euro after first reports of the shooting, while government bonds around the world edged higher on safe-haven buying.
Stocks markets across Europe, unsettled by Thursday's attack, fell on the shooting news with the pan-European benchmark FTSEurofirst index down 0.3 percent by 1235 GMT. They recovered the losses later in the day.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Gray, Mark Trevelyan, Yara Bayoumy, Sumeet Desai, Katie Allen, Kate Holton, Mike Peacock, Jeremy Lovell, Matthew Jones, Fiona Shaikh)
07/22/05 10:00
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