July 14, 2005
MSNBC
Photo: London police hand out posters to commuters Thursday at King's Cross train station, appealing for information from the public on the London terror attacks.
LONDON - An unidentified man caught by closed-circuit TV cameras standing near the four suspects in the London terror attacks is being sought by British authorities, a week after the deadly attack that killed at least 52 people in the British capital.
Meantime, British police confirmed that the attacks were suicide bombings while they released a photo of one of the suspects taken shortly before the bombing of a double-decker bus.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair told the Foreign Press Association that police believe “that we know who the four people carrying the bombs were ... and we believe they are all dead.”
“We are as certain as we can be that four people were killed and they were the four people carrying bombs,” Blair said.
His comments were the first public confirmation from police that the July 7 attackers were suicide bombers. Bombs exploded on three subway trains and a bus, killing at least 53 people, including the attackers.
Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch, on Thursday identified the suspected suicide bomber who blew up the double-decker bus, killing 13 people, as Hasib Hussain. He says investigators want to know “was he alone or with others” and what route he took to get from a subway station to the bus.
Clarke also said Shehzad Tanweer, 22, was responsible for attacking a subway train between the Liverpool Street and Aldgate stations.
Separately, Sky Television identified the fourth bomber as Jamaican-born Briton Lyndsey Germail. The BBC gave his name as Lindsey Germaine, as did the New York Times, citing American law enforcement officials.
Asked about the reports, London police said they had not released details of the suspect.
Egyptian academic sought
As Britain held a two-minute silent tribute to the victims, police officers in the northern city of Leeds continued to examine evidence in an effort to trace the mastermind behind the terror attacks. In London, officers handed out leaflets at bus, railway and Underground stations, seeking to identify anyone who may have seen the bombers.
The Times newspaper, quoting unidentified police sources, said detectives were interested in locating M. Asi el-Mashar, 33, an Egyptian-born academic who recently taught chemistry at Leeds University. The Times said he was thought to have rented one of the homes being searched in Leeds.
Neighbors reported that el-Mashar had recently left Britain, saying he had a visa problem, The Times reported.
It wasn't clear from the reports whether el-Mashar was the man seen in the video footage.
Meantime, the Daily Telegraph said police were trying to identify a man seen standing near the four suspects on the platform at Luton railway station, where they apparently boarded a train for London on the morning of the bombings.
The New York Times, citing an unnamed U.S. official who described the Luton footage, said the British police knew the fifth man's name but were not releasing it. He was described as a "highly trained person."
The Evening Standard, for its part, reported Wednesday that police had spotted a fifth man on closed-circuit tape showing the group at King’s Cross about 20 minutes before the explosions.
Late Wednesday, Scotland Yard said anti-terror police had raided a residence northwest of London as part of their investigations into the bombings.
Officers carried out a forensic examination, but police would not say why the house in a quiet residential street in Aylesbury, about 40 miles from London and 20 miles from Luton — where a vehicle thought to be linked to last week’s attacks was towed away earlier Wednesday — was targeted.
Authorities suspect the attackers didn’t work alone, and that their collaborators or leader are likely still at large.
A wider network
Britain’s top law enforcement official, Home Secretary Charles Clarke said authorities were looking closely “at the relationship between the people who may have committed the offenses and the wider network around them.”
Several officials, including Foreign Minister Jack Straw, have said the attacks bore the “hallmark” of al-Qaida. Two claims of responsibility purportedly from militant Islamic groups have surfaced.
Police continued on Thursday to detain a 29-year-old man, arrested during raids on Leeds on Tuesday. In London, officers resumed the task of searching through voluminous evidence from closed-circuit TV footage and the grisly scene where the blasts ripped apart three trains and a bus.
An uncle of Tanweer said his nephew had gone to Pakistan for two months earlier this year to study religion, and that the family believed he was attending “some religious function” on the day of the bombings.
“It was total shock. I mean, it’s unbelievable,” Bashir Ahmed told reporters.
Bosnian explosives?
The Times quoted police sources as saying Tanweer had once been arrested for disorderly behavior, and Hussain was questioned about shoplifting. The newspaper quoted sources as saying the name of one suspect “emerged” during an anti-terrorist investigation, but he was not arrested or questioned.
Yossef Bodansky, director of research at the International Strategic Studies Association, said the explosives likely came from Bosnia.
“Until you get the receipt, you will not (know) for sure, but all indications are right now that this is the source of the explosives and the fuses,” he said.
He also surmised that the bombers may be part of a larger network.
“There’s no question that these four were at the end of some kind of a totem pole,” that included logistical systems, training, intelligence and other support.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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