British police shoot man in anti-terrorism raid

LONDON, June 2 (Reuters) British anti-terrorist police shot a man today in a dawn raid on a house they suspected could have been used for making bombs or chemical weapons.

More than 250 officers, some wearing chemical, biological and radiological protection suits, descended on the house in east London in one of the biggest raids since last July's suicide bombings on the capital's transport system.

''Because of the very specific nature of the intelligence, we planned an operation that was designed to mitigate any threat to the public either from firearms or from hazardous substances,'' said Peter Clarke, head of Britain's anti-terrorism branch.

Police said a 23-year-old man who was at the house was shot by firearms officers. The man was arrested in hospital on suspicion of ''the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism'', Clarke said.

The man's injuries were not life-threatening and one shot was fired, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said.

A second man, 20, was also arrested under the Terrorism Act.

''The intelligence was such that it demanded an intensive investigation and response,'' Clarke said.

''The purpose of the investigation ... is to prove or disprove the intelligence that we have received ... Sometimes the only way to do so is to mount an operation such as that which we carried out this morning.'' Police said the raid was not linked to last July's attacks on London's transport system, when four British Islamists blew themselves up on underground trains and a bus, killing 52 commuters.

''Loads of police came along and broke the windows to get inside the house,'' said Nimesh Patel, 14, a neighbour on the street in the ethnically mixed Forest Gate area of the capital.

''One guy came out with a shot to his shoulder. He was moving and he was dizzy. They gave him some gas and took him away.'' ''LOUD BANGS'' He said the family who lived at the house with two sons and a daughter were friendly and described them as ''very religious''.

Neighbour Student Dimple Hirani, 21, said: ''My parents heard loud bangs which we presumed were gunshots.'' She said she thought the family were Bangladeshi immigrants.

London police Commissioner Ian Blair, Britain's top officer, has said three terrorism plots have been thwarted since the July 2005 bombings and that groups were planning further attacks.

Today's shooting is the first in an anti-terrorism operation since police shot dead Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes last July after officers wrongly identified him as a suspected suicide bomber.

In the northern English city of Manchester, police said they had released two men arrested last month in raids meant to catch people suspected of involvement in attacks abroad.

The police said they had disrupted ''a known terrorist group'' and that six people were still being held pending deportation as they posed a threat to national security.

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