British police shoot man during terror raid

[Narsil]

LONDON (Reuters) - Anti-terrorist police, backed up by the bomb squad and officers wearing protective suits, shot a man during a dawn raid on a house in east London on Friday.

Scotland Yard said the man had been wounded after more than 250 officers, acting on intelligence, carried out the raid, one of the biggest since last July's London suicide bombings.

"During the operation, a man was shot by police and has been taken to a nearby hospital," a statement said.

No details about the shot man or what had provoked the raid were given. A 23-year-old man was arrested at the scene and has been taken to a central London police station for questioning.

The shooting incident has been routinely referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, who said the man's injuries were not life-threatening.

Police said the operation followed close liaison between security services and the Health Protection Agency, a body charged with guarding against infectious diseases.

Sky News, citing unnamed sources, said the raided house had been a suspected bomb factory.

Police only confirmed that the raid was not linked to last July's attacks on London's transport system which killed 52 commuters.

Officers wearing chemical, biological and radiological protective clothing were sent to the scene in the ethnically mixed Forest Gate area of the capital while nearby roads were cordoned off.

The bomb disposal unit and riot police were also dispatched to the house in a row of Victorian properties around the corner from a road of shops.

"Loads of police came along and broke the windows to get inside the house," said neighbour Nimesh Patel, 14.

"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."

"VERY RELIGIOUS"

He said the family who lived at the house with two sons and a daughter were friendly and described them as "very religious".

Student Dimple Hirani, 21, who lives a few doors down from the raided house said: "My parents heard loud bangs which we presumed were gunshots."

She said she thought the family were Bangladeshi immigrants. One, whom she had gone to school with, had recently grown a beard and adopted a more conservative style of dress.

"A lot of lads are doing that now. They are getting more into their religion, she added.

Britain has been on high alert since the attacks last July 7 when four British Islamists blew themselves up on three underground trains and a double decker bus.

Two weeks later police said they foiled an identical plot.

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

The shooting is the first during an anti-terrorism operation since police shot dead Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes last July as he boarded an underground train in south London after officers wrongly identified him as a suspected suicide bomber.

The government said the Home Secretary had been kept fully informed of Friday's events.