Five arrested in suspected bomb plot

LONDON, England -- Five Irishmen were arrested Thursday when a house was stormed by armed police and potential bomb parts confiscated.

Trimble is to meet Blair in London for talks on Northern Ireland

Components thought to be necessary for making pipe bombs were taken away for forensic inspection during the dawn raid on the suspected bomb factory in a west London suburb.

Anti-terrorist branch detectives and officers from the firearms unit of the Metropolitan Police swooped on the house in Sutherland Road, Ealing, just after 7.30 am, Scotland Yard said.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "This was a carefully planned armed operation and we believe we may have thwarted a pipe bomb attack."

The men were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to cause explosions and taken to a central London police station for questioning.

No shots were fired during the raid and no one was injured, but residents of a neighbouring flat were unable to get inside their home after being evacuated as a safety measure, police said.

Detectives were not linking the latest arrests with three bomb attacks in the capital last year at this stage, Scotland Yard said.

The attacks, including one on a rail line near Ealing, were believed to be the work of dissident republicans from the breakaway Real IRA.

Today's raid coincides with Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble's trip to London for urgent talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair in a bid to break the deadlock in the Northern Ireland peace process.

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