ANTI-TERRORIST police have arrested four men suspected of trying to buy material for a radiological “dirty” bomb. Three men were arrested at a hotel in north London, while a fourth was arrested at his home nearby.

It has been reported that the men — one of whom was from Goa, India, another from Somalia and a third from Mozambique — were middlemen acting for a Saudi Arabian.

The men were arrested on Friday after a tip-off from reporters at the News of the World. The suspects claimed to the reporters that their client was willing to pay £300,000 for a kilogram of radioactive “red mercury”.

“It’ll be for use here in the UK or the USA,” the reporters were told.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said the men had been arrested under the Terrorism Act, adding: “All four men have been taken into custody at a central London police station for further questioning. Several addresses have been searched. Some searches continue.”

Concerns over a possible “dirty bomb” attack will be further highlighted tonight in a television drama that paints a picture of Britain unprepared to cope with the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

The programme shows police disorganisation leading to a riot spiralling out of control, too few firemen available to tackle the emergency and hospitals overwhelmed by casualties.

The explosion of small quantities of low-grade uranium packed around conventional explosives leaves a three-square-mile area around the City of London potentially uninhabitable for years.

The makers of the film, Dirty Bomb, which will be shown on BBC1 tonight, claim all these scenes are based on concerns expressed to them by serving members of the emergency authorities during research for the programme.

Civil defence documents, compiled in October last year, also show that more than half the district and county councils in England do not have mass evacuation plans. More than two-thirds of authorities and police forces do not have plans to deal with people contaminated in a “dirty bomb” attack.

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