Police in London have charged four men with manufacturing pipe-bombs following a raid on a house in Ealing last Thursday morning.
A fifth man who was arrested during the raid was released on bail without charge, but will be required to attend at a police station next month.
The four men will appear at a hearing at Horseferry Road Magistrates' Court later today on charges of constructing pipebombs on or before January 31st, giving rise to "a reasonable suspicion" that they were being made for an unlawful object.
The men - Mr Robert Richard James Lee (35), of Pinner, Middlesex; Mr Patrick Kevin Gallagher (45), of Sutherland Road, Ealing, west London; Mr Patrick Joseph Dunne (29), of no fixed address; and Mr Alan David McGovern (32), of no fixed address - were charged under the Explosive Substances Act.
It is believed that two of the men are Irish.
The five men were initially arrested when officers of the antiterrorist branch, backed up by armed officers from the Metropolitan Police firearms unit, raided a flat in a house on Sutherland Road, Ealing, west London, early on Thursday morning.
A police spokesman said after the raid that they believed they had foiled a possible pipe-bomb attack on the capital.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said last night that the police investigation was focusing on criminal rather than terrorist activity.