Anti-terrorist police in London believe they have foiled a pipe-bomb attack after the arrest of five men yesterday in a raid on a west London flat and the discovery of possible bomb-making material.
Early reports that the bomb material was connected with dissident Irish republicans was dismissed yesterday evening. Garda sources said they had no information to connect the find with dissident activity.
The men were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to cause explosions and are being questioned at a police station in central London.
They are not being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and a Scotland Yard spokeswoman refused to confirm speculation that the men were Irish.
Scotland Yard said there was no evidence at present to link the arrests and seizures of material from the flat in Ealing, west London, to republican dissident terrorism.
Scotland Yard said police were not linking the men to three terrorist attacks in London last year. The attack on the MI6 headquarters, an explosion on a railway line in Ealing and an explosion on Hammersmith Bridge are believed to have been carried out by the dissident republican group the "Real IRA".
Officers from the anti-terrorist branch and members of the Metropolitan Police firearms unit raided the ground-floor flat in a house on Sutherland Road, Ealing, at 7.35 a.m. The police said no shots were fired and there were no injuries. Material believed to make up parts of a pipe-bomb were taken away for forensic examination.
A number of local residents who were evacuated during the operation were allowed to return to their homes a few hours later, Scotland Yard said.
Chief Supt Peter Goulding, of the Metropolitan Police, said anti-terrorist officers were questioning the five men.