Police hold five over IRA attack on Harrods

ANTI-TERRORIST branch detectives last night released five of the 10 people detained after the broadcast of photographs of two IRA supects in the act of planting a bomb outside Harrods.

Still being questioned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act at the high-security Paddington Green police station in west London last night were the two men arrested on Tuesday evening in a flat in a terrace house in the Stoke Newington area of north-east London. Shots were fired at police during the raid.

During Tuesday night, another eight people were arrested at different addresses around London. Five were released yesterday afternoon and the remaining three were still being questioned at an undisclosed police station, which was not Paddington Green.

Scotland Yard has refused to disclose any details of any of those arrested, including those subsequently released.

Sources said all those still detained were being questioned about both the Harrods bomb on 28 January, which was placed in a litter bin and injured three people, and other explosions in London and elsewhere in recent months.

A search of the flat in Stoke Newington led to discovery of between 20 and 50lbs of Semtex plastic explosive, a number of handguns and automatic weapons, ammunition and bomb-making equipment.

Scotland Yard said the Stoke Newington arrests came directly as a result of the lunchtime broadcast of the film taken from the Harrods security camera. Detectives had not publicised the existence of the film beforehand in order to conduct a search without alerting the suspects.