Police shot dead a man at a south London underground station yesterday as they hunted for bombers who struck London's transport network a day earlier.
The attacks on Thursday lunchtime caused chaos but killed no one, in an apparently failed bid to repeat suicide bombings that killed 52 people two weeks earlier.
"We can confirm that just after 10am armed officers entered Stockwell Tube station. A man was challenged by officers and subsequently shot. London Ambulance Service attended the scene. He was pronounced dead at the scene," police said.
Commuter Teri Godly told how she had stood next to the suspected suicide bomber before pandemonium erupted as armed police charged in.
"A tall Asian guy, shaved head, slight beard, with a rucksack got in front of me. Shortly after that, as I was about to get onto the train, eight or nine undercover police with walkie talkies and handguns started screaming at everyone to `get out, get out,'" she told Sky News television.
Other witnesses spoke of panic as the suspect vaulted over barriers as he was chased by plainclothes police officers. They said the man tripped and then police shot him.
"I saw them [police] offload five shots into the person on the floor," witness Mark Whitby told BBC TV. "I saw them kill a man."
"The other passengers were distraught. It was just mayhem, people were just getting off the Tube ... People running in all directions, looks of horror on their faces, screaming, a lot of screaming from women, absolute mayhem," he said.
Another man spoke of a strange smell that seemed to be coming from a smoking bag on the train.
Media reports said the man was a suspected suicide bomber -- possibly one of the four being hunted after Thursday's attacks. Services on the Victoria and Northern lines, which run through Stockwell station, were disrupted.
Police cordoned off the streets around the station and escorted witnesses to a nearby veterinary surgery for questioning.
The Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade, an al-Qaeda-linked group which claimed responsibility for the July 7 bombings, posted a statement on an Islamist Web site yesterday claiming it carried out Thursday's attacks.
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the UK, Prince Turki al Faisal, said the attack bore the classic taint of the al-Qaeda network.
As forensics experts searched the three underground trains and a double-decker bus hit by small, near-simultaneous explosions on Thursday, police were called to a series of security alerts across the south of the city.
They were also examining the remains of the devices that failed to detonate, in the hope of identifying the explosives and finding fingerprints or other clues that might lead them to the bomb-makers.
Police have more clues from Thursday's attacks, including the unexploded bombs, witness reports and CCTV footage, than they had after the July 7 suicide bombs that killed 52 commuters and the four bombers and wounded 700.
Newspapers printed a picture of a damaged backpack, which they said held nails, nuts and bolts, which was abandoned on the number 26 bus that had several windows blown out on Thursday.
As the manhunt intensified yesterday, commuters got back onto buses and underground trains, vowing to continue their normal routines despite a second wave of attacks in two weeks.
However, hundreds of underground drivers could refuse to work if there are more attacks on the rail network, a union official warned yesterday.
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