LONDON: British police arrested a second man over the bombing of a London commuter train as the overall threat level in the country was downgraded.
Thirty people are thought to have been injured during an attack on Friday when an improvised explosive device was detonated on a train at Parsons Green Underground Station.
“The Joint Terrorist Analysis Center, which reviews the threat level that the UK is under, have decided to lower that level from critical to severe,” Home Secretary Amber Rudd said.
A 21-year-old man was arrested by counter terrorism detectives in Hounslow, west London, late on Saturday, the Met said in a statement.
The operation had little impact on the crowds doing their Sunday morning shopping on Hounslow High Street, where few of the people listening to buskers outside the Treaty Shopping Center knew either of the arrest or the country’s elevated threat level.
But while Londoners may be unshaken by the series of terror incidents that have hit the capital this year, police called for the public to remain vigilant.
It was Britain’s fifth terror attack in six months.
The man was arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act and taken to a south London police station where he remains in custody.
It follows the earlier arrest of an 18-year-old man in the port area of Dover on Saturday.
Police launched a manhunt after a “bucket bomb” was detonated inside a packed carriage.
“What is interesting is that they decided to return to transportation infrastructure, said Erroll G. Southers, an expert in counterterrorism and the author of “Homegrown Violent Extremism”.
“Aviation is becoming increasingly hard so why not go to rail and buses.”
While Daesh said it was responsible for Friday’s attack, British Home Secretary Amber Rudd questioned the claim.
“It is inevitable that so-called Islamic State or Daesh will try to claim responsibility but we have no evidence to suggest that yet,” she told the BBC.
Rudd also dismissed as pure speculation a tweet by US President Donald Trump that those responsible for the attack were “in the sights of Scotland Yard”.
Second man arrested as threat level lowered after London Tube attack
Second man arrested as threat level lowered after London Tube attack
Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of arming rebels in escalating war of words
- The charge by Ethiopia’s federal police escalates a feud between Ethiopia and Eritrea
- The two countries fought a three-year border war that broke out in 1998
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopian police said they had seized thousands of rounds of ammunition sent by Eritrea to rebels in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, an allegation Eritrea dismissed as a falsehood intended to justify starting a war.
The charge by Ethiopia’s federal police escalates a feud between Ethiopia and Eritrea, longstanding foes who reached a peace deal in 2018 that has since given way to renewed threats and acrimony.
The police said in a statement late on Wednesday they had seized 56,000 rounds of ammunition and arrested two suspects this week in the Amhara region, where Fano rebels have waged an insurgency since 2023.
“The preliminary investigation conducted on the two suspects who were caught red-handed has confirmed that the ammunition was sent by the Shabiya government,” the statement said, using a term for Eritrea’s ruling party.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told Reuters that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party (PP) was looking for a pretext to attack.
“The PP regime is floating false flags to justify the war that it has been itching to unleash for two long years,” he said.
In an interview earlier this week with state-run media, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki said the Prosperity Party had declared war on his country. He said Eritrea did not want war, but added: “We know how to defend our nation.”
The two countries fought a three-year border war that broke out in 1998, five years after Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia. They signed a historic agreement to normalize relations in 2018 that won Ethiopia’s Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. Eritrean troops then fought in support of Ethiopia’s army during a 2020-22 civil war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.
But relations soured after Asmara was frozen out of the peace deal that ended that conflict. Since then, Eritrea has bristled at repeated public declarations by Abiy that landlocked Ethiopia has a right to sea access — comments many in Eritrea, which lies on the Red Sea, view as an implicit threat of military action.
Abiy has said Ethiopia does not seek conflict with Eritrea and wants to address the issue of sea access through dialogue.
