London blasts: Police suspect 4 bombers died in attacks

12 July 2005 21:09  [Source: ICIS news]

HOUSTON (CNI)--UK police officials indicated on Tuesday that four men suspected of carrying out last Thursday’s terrorist attacks in London’s subway system and on a bus were suicide bombers who died in the explosions.

 

The officials also said they have arrested one man in West Yorkshire, in connection with the crime and are interrogating him in London.

 

In a press conference at Scotland Yard today, deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clark said that earlier today police executed search warrants on three houses in Leeds, West Yorkshire believed to be the residences of three of the four men suspected of carrying out the attacks.

 

Clark, head of Scotland Yard’s antiterrorist branch, also said authorities have closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of all four men arriving in London by train early on Thursday morning.

 

One of the four men, he said, was reported missing by his family not long after the attackers struck.

 

Clark said that investigators have found documents bearing the names of the four suspects on the three blasted trains and on the double-decker bus that was bombed.

 

He said that authorities have “very strong forensic evidence” in the case, including material found in one of the searched residences that may be explosives. Clark declined to detail the evidence gathered, noting that the investigation is still under way.

 

“We are conducting a complex and intensive terrorism investigation that is moving at great speed,” he said. Police also have isolated an automobile at Luton railway station, just north of London, that may have been used by the four attackers.

 

Clark and Andy Hayman, Scotland Yard assistant commissioner for special operations, both had high praise for assistance from the British public in the investigation. Hayman said Scotland Yard has received more than 2,000 telephone calls to its antiterrorist hotline, and officials have taken “several hundred” witness statements.

 

Hayman said authorities are still reviewing more than 2,500 CCTV tapes for further evidence.

 

Citing the ongoing investigation, Hayman said no questions or interviews would be allowed following the press conference.

 

He closed the conference by saying:  “We want to make absolutely clear that no one should be in any doubt that the work of Thursday morning last week is anything but the work of extremists and criminals, and no one should stigmatise any community with these acts.”

 

The death toll from last Thursday’s attacks in London is up to 52 persons.  Some 700 others were injured in the attacks.

By: Joe Kamalick
+1 713 525 2653

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