Police chased a man in a thick coat through a south London subway station, wrestled him to the ground, then shot him dead Friday. Authorities did not immediately identify the dead man, but said the shooting was directly linked to their "expanding" anti-terrorist operations. They also released photos of four men they urgently want to question in relation to the latest subway attacks, a series of duds that emptied the system Thursday and sent the city into fresh panic.
Subway passenger Mark Whitby told the BBC he saw a young man in a thick coat jump the turnstiles at the station and dash into the train: "He was hotly pursued by what I presumed were three plainclothes police officers. One of them was wielding a black handgun. He half-tripped as he [ran] into the carriage, they pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him."
Police also briefly cordoned off a mosque in East London and brought in police dogs in response to a bomb threat. Police have not said whether either incident was connected to Thursday's attacks.
Police detained two men Thursday, one near the Whitehall government office district, and the other near one of the closed subway stations. Police later released both of them without charge. Deputy Chief Constable Andy Trotter of the British Transport Police said that all available officers were either investigating or out patrolling the transport system.
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