BIRMINGHAM, England - Police stormed a home before dawn today and fired a stun gun to subdue a man suspected of being one of the four who carried out the failed July 21 transit bombings in London.

Members of the bomb squad, some dressed in armored suits, were seen moving into the home after police evacuated 100 nearby residences in a quiet ethnically mixed neighborhood in Britain's second-largest city.

Three men also were arrested in pre-dawn raids at another home about two miles away in this city about 120 miles northwest of London. The raids were carried out by 50 officers from London's Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch and West Midlands Police. No shots were fired.

"The operations are in connection with the incidents in London on July 21," the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. Bombs were planted on three London Underground trains and a bus on that day, but they failed to detonate fully.

Police would not confirm BBC and Sky news reports the man taken down with a Taser gun's electrical shocks may have been one of the four suspected of participating in last week's botched bombings. At least one witness said he may resemble Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, a Somali.

"I looked out of the window and the road was full of armed police and they had got the road closed off," said electrician Andy Wilkinson, who lives nearby.

He said the suspect looked like Omar but could not confirm it was him.

"After 10 or 15 minutes, they brought a guy out. He looked like the darkest-skinned one in the photos of the four suspects released by the police - the one with the curly hair," Wilkinson said. "They had him dressed in one of those white suits. He had plastic cuffs on the front."

The police spokesman said the man was being brought to the high-security Paddington Green police station in central London, while the other three were being held in Birmingham.

Police launched a manhunt after releasing images of four men thought responsible for planting the bombs. The pictures have been plastered over much of London's transit and railway system while police have for more than a week released various details about the attackers.

On Monday, they released the names of two of the suspects, 24-year-old Omar and Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, also known as Muktar Mohammed Said.

Omar arrived in Britain from Somalia in 1992 at age 11, the Home Office said. A Somali citizen with British residency, he is suspected of trying to blow up a subway train near Warren Street station.

Said came to Britain in 1990 from Eritrea, his family said. He was granted residency in 1992 and British citizenship in September 2004, the Home Office said.

Both are the children of refugees, the government said.

Police have also been trying to determine whether the failed bombings are connected to the deadly July 7 attacks that killed 56 people, including the four suicide bombers.

In a separate development, two other men were arrested on suspicion of terrorism while traveling on a train in England's midlands region.

Lincolnshire police said the train, which was on its way to London's King's Cross station from Newcastle, was stopped at Grantham, where the men were arrested at 11 p.m. Tuesday.

The men were being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. It was not immediately clear if the arrests were linked to the investigation into the London bombings.

In a related development, the body of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian mistakenly shot to death by police on July 22 in London, will be flown back to Brazil later today for burial, lawyers for his family said.

The Birmingham arrests also came as police explosives experts were examining suspicious material found in a north London apartment connected to two Omar and Said.

The bombs were stored in clear plastic food containers and put into dark-colored bags or backpacks. Police said those four bombs were similar to another found abandoned in a park Saturday, raising fears a fifth bomber is on the loose.

The Birmingham arrests would bring the number of people that police have said are being held in connection with the July 21 bombings to nine. Police last week arrested and were questioning five other people in relation to the botched bombings. It remained unclear if the other two being held had anything to do with the attacks.