A CAREFULLY planned operation launched by British anti terrorist police and the security services in London, Sussex and South Yorkshire early yesterday morning has uncovered a "significant quantity" of weapons and explosives, enough to plant five bombs similar in size to those used in Manchester and at Canary Wharf in London earlier this year.
In the raids on houses in west London, south west London and Sussex, five men were arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and one man was killed in a shoot out with police.
Police in south Yorkshire were also involved in a raid on an address in the area in which two men were arrested. In a raid on a small warehouse in north London, 10 tonnes of explosives were recovered with an array of bomb making equipment, firearms and timer units which the police said would have been used in "imminent attacks on British cities".
The Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Mr David Veness, said he could not rule out the possibility that the explosives could have been used "today or tomorrow".
The first raid began at about 4.30 a.m., when anti terrorist police surrounded an end of terrace Edwardian house in Glenthorne Road, Hammersmith, west London, which was formerly known as Terry's boarding house and was popular with Irish labourers working in the area.
Local residents spoke of hearing gunshots at first, followed by the sounds of sirens and breaking glass. Mrs Gulapshan Ali, who moved into the street two weeks ago, said she was woken by screams and shouts outside her house. She said: "My husband looked out of the window and saw about a dozen special policemen wearing bullet proof jackets. They were in position, crouching behind trees and cars around the house as others seemed to be trying to break into the basement and use ladders to get in."
What followed was, according to an eyewitness, a shout from the police to the two men inside the house to "throw your gun down, you haven't got a chance" and then several fairly long bursts of shots fired by the police at an up.
Outside the house yesterday a trail of blood could be seen on the steps leading up to the front door and there was a larger smear of blood down the path. The man who was shot in the incident was taken under armed guard to Charing Cross Hospital in London, where he died a few hours later. He has not been named by police.
Describing the moment when the shots were fired, Mrs Ali said: "The police were looking up at the window at the top shouting. One of them said, `He's got no chance, he should be out of there soon.' They kept, shouting, `Throw down your gun.'"
Another neighbour, Mr Fred Hunt, said he had seen the police "crawling down the side streets" and "lots of officers running in the shadows"; then he heard "a couple of gunshots and everything went quiet".
The shooting has been formally referred to the Police Complaints Authority which will investigate the incident.
The second man in the house emerged a few minutes later, wearing a white dressing gown, and he was handcuffed to police officers. He was then taken away for questioning at an unnamed police station.
A second arrest was made by police at a house in Averill Road, Fulham, where one man is believed to have been detained for questioning under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
During another early morning police raid at a house in Crawley, west Sussex, a third man was arrested in connection with the arms and explosives finds. He has been identified as an engineer who was working at Gatwick Airport.
In south Yorkshire, three hours later, police confirmed that two men were being detained as part of an ongoing operation involving the anti terrorist squad".
The assistant chief constable of South Yorkshire Police, Mr Tim Hollis, said raids on a house and an industrial unit on the outskirts of Sheffield yesterday were part of a search for information, rather than for suspects, and that no one had been arrested in the operation.
As details began to emerge of the shoot out in west London, the police announced a second "significant discovery" of explosives at an industrial storage facility in Wood Green, North London. At a row of storage units in an industrial estate behind the local train station police found 10 tonnes of explosives for use in an "imminent" lorry bomb attack.
Mr James Fox, who works for the General Welfare of the Blind, and whose organisation rents a storage unit behind the unit where the explosives were found, said he had no idea who had been renting the storage facility.