British police on Friday arrested two of the three suspected bombers they had been hunting over failed attacks on London's transport system, TV reports said, citing police sources.

Meanwhile, police in Rome arrested Somali national Osman Hussein, suspected of being one of the four would-be suicide bombers in the failed London attacks on July 21, Italy's Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu announced Friday.

"The arrest took place a short while ago in Rome of the Somalian, Osman Hussein, a naturalized British citizen, the fourth attacker in the London on July 21," Pisanu said in a statement.

Armed British police surrounded an apartment in west London and were heard ordering a suspect to surrender. Witnesses said two men were taken away from the scene. A third was arrested nearby.

A police source said the arrests were "potentially very significant", but declined to give details.

Four would-be bombers carried out the abortive attacks on July 21, exactly two weeks after four suspected Muslim militants killed themselves and 52 other people in blasts on three underground trains and a bus in London.

One of those suspected of carrying out one of the July 21 attacks - in which bombs were planted but failed to explode properly - was arrested on Wednesday in a dawn raid in the central England city of Birmingham.

Police confirmed they had made a total of three arrests at two different locations on Friday.

The BBC and Sky television said men suspected of carrying out July 21 attacks at the Oval underground railway station and on a Number 26 bus had been detained.

All those arrested were taken to the high-security Paddington Green police station, the police source said.

Two days after the four failed attacks, police said they had found a fifth bomb in bushes in the Wormwood Scrubs area, a few hundred metres from the scene of Friday's raid.

In a day of frequent and dramatic developments, police also arrested two people at London's Liverpool Street station in the heart of the city and closed the complex. A witness said plain clothes police arrested two women at the station. They investigated a suspect package and later reopened the station.

Possible 7/7 mastermind held

A British man thought to be the possible mastermind of the London bombings has been detained in Zambia. Haroon Rashid Aswat, who grew up in West Yorkshire, was reportedly arrested last week.

The 30-year-old is believed to have been in close contact with the four suicide bombers in the days before the July 7 attacks.

The Daily Mail said police believe Aswat made 20 calls from his mobile phone to two of the four suicide bombers in late June, and had allegedly visited Leeds, where three of the bombers lived. Aswat had also reportedly been in London for two weeks before the attack and apparently fled just hours before the explosions.

The Los Angeles Times said British security services had flown to Zambia, in southern Africa, to question Aswat.

The Foreign Office confirmed it was seeking consular access to a British national reported to be in custody in Zambia.

Source: China Daily