British police suspect timers used in bomb attacks
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-09 21:14

Police hunting for suspected al Qaeda bombers who killed more than 50 people in London said on Saturday three of the blasts were almost simultaneous, making it more likely they were detonated by timers than suicide bombers.

They also said a fourth bomb that ripped the roof off a bus almost an hour later was probably left in a bag and not detonated by a suicide bomber, although nothing had been ruled out. They declined to speculate on why it went off later than the three which blew up on London's underground railway.

Investigators were struggling in extreme heat to retrieve bodies still trapped underground two days after the attacks, and anxious relatives were frantically looking for loved-ones missing since the rush-hour blasts on Thursday morning.

Police have made no arrests and say they are looking for no specific individuals.

A third Islamist group claimed responsibility for the blasts which government ministers said bore all the hallmarks of the Islamic militant al Qaeda network which was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

"All three bombs on the London Underground system actually exploded within seconds of each other at around 8:50 in the morning," Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick told a news conference.

"Bearing in mind these were almost simultaneous, we think within 50 seconds of each other, maybe that lends more toward timing devices more than people actually with the bombs, manually detonating. But we are not ruling out either of those possibilities."

Police had previously thought the three blasts were spread over nearly half an hour, but revised their information in the light of new technical data and witness statements, he said.

The fourth bomb went off on a bus near King's Cross station at 9:47 a.m. as part of one of the worst peacetime attacks in the British capital.

DESPERATE SEARCHES CONTINUE

Flowers, notes and appeals for information about missing relatives piled up outside King's Cross station, where bodies were still trapped deep underground. More than 25 people, of many nationalities and religions, were still unaccounted for.

"Barbarism will never kill freedom," read one note in French. "Madrid is with London," said another. Train bombings linked to al Qaeda killed 191 people in Madrid last year.

Police said 49 people were confirmed dead in London, but emergency staff were still trying to retrieve bodies in one of the subway system's deepest tunnels two days after the blasts.

Spain has sent security experts to Britain and experts said the bombers might try to blow themselves up if cornered by police, just as they did after the Madrid attacks.

"The more extreme Islamists' operating instructions dictate that, if faced with capture, they should kill themselves and take as many of the enemy with them as they can," said Dominic Armstrong from security company Aegis Defense Services.

A group claiming links to al Qaeda called the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades said on Saturday it was behind the blasts and suggested it could strike again. It was the third such claim by an Islamist group since the blasts.

"We will not rest until security becomes a reality in the land of Islam and Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine," it said in an Internet statement.

The group has claimed authorship of previous attacks in Turkey and Spain. But intelligence sources have treated its statements skeptically, seeing it as an opportunistic group trying to associate itself with al Qaeda.

Two other groups had already claimed responsibility for the London attacks, saying the blasts were punishment for Britain's involvement in Iraq, and other U.S. allies could be next.

Italy said on Friday its troop withdrawal from Iraq would start as planned in September -- and no sooner. Japan said on Thursday it had no plans to withdraw its troops.

Police said each of the bombs was believed to have contained up to 10 lbs (4.5 kg) of high explosives and could have been carried around in backpacks.

LONG INVESTIGATION EXPECTED

A leading forensic scientist said it could take months or even longer to identify all the people killed.

"The biggest problem will be the closer you get to the impact explosion site, the more fragmented will be the remains, so the identifications becomes more difficult," said Professor Sue Black, a forensic expert at Dundee University.

Parts of London's creaking transport network, which carries three million people a day, could be disrupted for weeks.

The World Travel & Tourism Council estimated that visitor arrivals to Britain might decline by more than half a million or about 2 percent in 2005 from an earlier expected 31 million.

But many visitors said they would not change their plans.

"My family were already visiting before the bombs. We are not going to cancel anything," said Sukrit Ngamdumrongkiat, 21, a student from Thailand showing three relatives around. "We are upset, but don't think it will happen again. It is very sad."

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