Armed British police took up positions on Tuesday outside a house in Leeds, north-east England, scene of anti-terrorist raids earlier in the day, Britain’s domestic Press Association reported.
Officers were seen outside the property in Hyde Park Road, in the Burley district of Leeds, minutes after what was reported to be a controlled explosion, the news agency said.
Police raided at least five premises earlier on Tuesday in what metropolitan police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair called a ”significant” operation related to Thursday’s bombings in London, which killed at least 52 people.
Neighbours at one of the premises searched in Leeds and other parts of West Yorkshire reported that a 22-year-old man who lived at the address with his family had gone missing, the Press Association said.
Spokesperson for the metropolitan police in London were unable to confirm that armed police were surrounding the house in Leeds, an industrial city with a large Muslim community of south Asian origin.
More victims’ names released
The names of two more victims in London’s deadly bomb blasts were released on Tuesday as investigators struggled to identify dozens of other people, and police searched several houses in northern England for suspects in the terrorist attacks.
The families of 30-year-old financial adviser Jamie Gordon and Philip Stuart Russell — whose 29th birthday would have been on Monday — said the two men were on the number-30 bus that exploded near Tavistock Square. The other three bombs exploded on the subways last Thursday.
Two other victims have also been identified, but the families did not give permission for their names to be released. Two others — Susan Levy (53), a mother of two sons from Hertfordshire outside London, and accountant Helen Jones (28) — were named by their families this week.
Little hope for the missing
As British Prime Minister Tony Blair signed the book of condolences at City Hall on Tuesday, families and friends of the missing returned to King’s Cross subway station where most of the people died last week. Station walls were lined with pictures and telephone numbers with pleas for information about their loved ones.
”I need to know, I want to protect him,” said Marie Fatayi-Williams, who arrived from Nigeria to find out what happened to her son Anthony (26). ”How many tears shall we cry? How many mothers’ hearts must be maimed? My heart is maimed at this moment. I pray I will see my son Anthony.”
The family of Michael Matsushita, a New Yorker who moved abroad in the spring of 2001, said it is likely he is dead. The 37-year-old left home on Thursday to go to work and never returned.
”At this time, we’ve been told that there is virtually no possibility that he is alive,” said David Golovner, a spokesperson for Matsushita’s family. ”We realise the police wouldn’t have told us that unless they were certain. We have given up, basically, any sort of extravagant theories about how he might still be alive.”
Hunt for bombers, evidence
Blair promised that authorities will hunt relentlessly for the bombers. Police said their painstaking investigation is moving ahead, and warned that the death toll — which went from 49 to 52 on Monday — will rise. Fifty-six of the 700 injured remain hospitalised.
Forensics experts have warned it could take days or weeks to put names to the bodies, many of which were blown apart and will have to be identified through dental records or DNA analysis.
Police Commissioner Blair said forensic experts are scouring the tunnel where a bomb exploded on board a Piccadilly line train, the deadliest of the four blasts. Police said they are also scrutinising 2 500 closed-circuit television tapes taken from cameras around the explosion sites.
”This is the biggest crime scene in England’s history,” Blair said. ”They still have to get underneath the carriages, and it is possible they will find more” bodies.
Back to normal
Public transit officials said the number of passengers using London’s vast bus and subway network, which handles three million people on a typical day, is back to normal.
But sales of bicycles in London have climbed since Thursday’s bombings as workers look for alternatives to public transport, the capital’s biggest cycle retailer said, with foldable models drawing more interest.
The prime minister said no specific intelligence was available that might have helped authorities thwart the attacks, answering critics who have questioned the government’s vigilance and readiness.
”Our country will not be defeated by such terror,” he told the House of Commons. ”We will pursue those responsible wherever they are and will not rest until they are identified and … brought to justice.”
Police are analysing the 2 000 phone calls to an anti-terrorist hot line, 115 000 calls to police and complex forensic evidence from the scenes of the subway and bus attacks.
Help came from abroad, too, as intelligence officials and detectives from about two dozen countries — including Spanish investigators who worked on the Madrid train bombings of March 2004 — met over the weekend to discuss leads. — Sapa-AP, AFP