7/7 leader's widow is held in terror swoops

Hasina Patel, a 29-year-old mother of one, is alleged to have had knowledge that her husband was plotting carnage in London but failed to alert police.

Detectives are also investigating whether she played an active role in the preparation of the attacks, which claimed 52 lives.

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British-born Patel - who once met the Queen at Buckingham Palace when her mother was honoured for her community work - was detained in an early morning raid at her home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

Patel - the first woman to be held in connection with the investigation - and three men were held under the Terrorism Act on suspicion of being accomplices of the four suicide bombers who targeted London in July 2005.

Her husband, 30, a classroom assistant from Beeston, Leeds, murdered six people when he struck on the Circle Line at Edgware Road.

Unarmed police swooped just after 7am on addresses across West Yorkshire and the West Midlands. Seven addresses in Dewsbury, Batley, Beeston in south Leeds, and Birmingham were cordoned off for forensic investigation.

Officers arrested Patel, her brother Arshad Patel, 30, and Khalid Khaliq, 34, a youth worker and taxi driver in West Yorkshire.

Imran Motala, 22, was held at his girlfriend's student digs in Selly Oak, Birmingham. Police believe he may be related in some way to Mrs Patel.

The four were taken to top security Paddington Green police station in West London to be questioned on suspicion of commissioning, preparing or instigating acts of terrorism.

Ever since the July 7 explosions, police have strongly suspected the bombers - Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain and Jermaine Lindsay - were supported by a larger group based in Britain and Pakistan.

Last month, three British-born Muslims became the first suspects to appear in court charged with conspiring with the four.

Despite the breakthrough, detectives insisted the 'painstaking' investigation into the bombings was far from over.

The developments are, according to security sources, the results of exhaustive inquiries in Britain and Pakistan over the last 22 months.

It is understood detectives have analysed mobile phone records, including text messages, of suspected accomplices of the bombers.

They have also carried out cell-site analysis of mobile phones in an attempt to trace the movements those suspected of being part of a 'support network' in the run-up to the attacks.

The Daily Mail can reveal officers have also spoken extensively to neighbours and relatives of the bombers, some of whom have provided 'vital information'.

Each of the suspects arrested yesterday were finger-printed and asked to provide DNA samples which will be compared to forensic evidence gathered by investigators.

The raids were led by the Metropolitan Police counter terrorism unit, with support from West Midlands and West Yorkshire Police.

Police were seen leaving and entering Hasina Patel's twostorey mid-terrace house in Thornhill Lees, Dewsbury at around 7am. Security sources said that the arrest was low key - to avoid increasing community tensions.

Race campaigner Suresh Grover, who has represented Patel since 2005, said he was 'shocked and outraged'.

"Hasina and her family have co-operated with the police, intelligence services, with the coroner, they have been in regular contact with everyone," he said.

"There is absolutely no reason for these dramatic arrests to take place in this fashion."

Her brother Arshad was detained at a house in the Batley area of Leeds.

One of the properties being searched in Beeston was close to the family home of bomber Tanweer.

Neighbour Carole Condon, 59, said an Asian family had lived at the address for a number of years.

Further down Tempest Road a single police officer guarded another property, where an Asian couple and their three children are thought to live. A neighbour said the same address was raided immediately after the 7/7 bombings.

In Birmingham, addresses were searched in the Handsworth and Selly Oak areas of the city, including student accommodation in Grange Road, where police removed a silver Peugeot 307.

In Leonard Road, Handsworth, witnesses saw officers searching Motala's family home while a silver Vauxhall Astra was towed away.