British Policeman Killed in Terrorism Raid

Britain’s terrorism crackdown turned deadly Tuesday when a suspect fatally stabbed a detective and wounded four other officers during a raid on an apartment in Manchester, police said.

The alleged killer and two other men, all described as North Africans, were arrested during the raid, which was tied to last week’s discovery of the poison ricin at a suspected terrorist hide-out, authorities said. The ricin case is part of a concerted investigation of an Algerian-dominated network of Al Qaeda members in Britain and France.

The slain officer was a 40-year-old detective in the Special Branch, an elite national unit whose duties include terrorism investigations. He was one of five officers, including tactical and immigration officers, who took part in the raid, police said.

The officers entered the apartment Tuesday afternoon looking for a single suspect and instead found three, according to police. The tactical officers wore protective vests and clothing, Chief Constable Michael Todd of the Manchester police said, but the Special Branch detectives did not.

“The Special Branch officers were there in a supportive capacity to conduct searches and the intelligence-gathering stage of the operation,” Todd said. “When one of the suspects managed to pick up a knife, the officers from Special Branch went to assist their colleagues. They were not equipped with protective vests, as they had only gone to the premises to search them.”

During the ensuing melee, a suspect fatally stabbed the detective in the chest and wounded another officer, also in the chest, police said.

Three other officers suffered less serious stab wounds, police said.

The incident was the bloodiest by far in a 16-month crackdown on Islamic terrorists in Europe since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. It was apparently the first killing of a European policeman during the fight against terrorism linked to the Al Qaeda network, a law enforcement campaign that began in the region in the late 1990s. Numerous police officers in Europe have been killed by domestic terrorists, such as the Irish Republican Army and the ETA, a Basque terrorist group in Spain.

“It is an appalling tragedy and wicked in the extreme,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

Police did not provide details of any connection between the suspects in Manchester and last week’s discovery in London of a primitive laboratory where six Algerians allegedly produced ricin, a highly toxic poison for which there is no antidote. But they said Tuesday’s raid was part of a continuing hunt for other suspects and any ricin that may have been produced.

Investigators in anti-contamination suits searched the scene of the raid but found no traces of ricin, said Assistant Chief Constable Alan Green of the Manchester police.

Tuesday’s bloodshed seemed the grim culmination of an agitated 10-week period in which investigators in Britain, France and other countries grew increasingly concerned about insistent intelligence reports and investigative leads warning of imminent terrorist violence.

British and French cooperation led to the dismantling of a suspected cell allegedly planning a chemical attack in London in November, several groups in Paris suspected of targeting Russian interests in France in following weeks, and the ricin case here.

A common thread connects the cases, investigators said: The suspects belong to a mostly Algerian offshoot of Al Qaeda, which is essentially a multiethnic alliance of networks.

Some of the suspects are hardened veterans of combat in the separatist Russian republic of Chechnya and of training camps in Chechnya and Georgia, while others are surviving members of a group led by Abu Doha, who awaits extradition from Britain to the U.S. on charges that he masterminded an attempt to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in 1999. Abu Doha’s network, based in London, is also implicated in European plots.

“It seems quite likely that the cases here and in Britain involve the same network,” a high-ranking French law enforcement official said recently.

Police disclosed no further information about the three suspects arrested Tuesday.

Two are under investigation for terrorism offenses and one for murder.

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Rotella reported from Paris and Stobart from London.