The presumed suicide bombers who killed themselves and 52 other people in London on July 7 checked out their targets a week beforehand with an apparent dummy run of the attack, police said on Tuesday.
Grainy stills from closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras issued by the police showed three of the four men assumed to be the attackers gathering together before heading into the capital on June 28.
“The implication is that they were possibly conducting reconnaissance on that day,” said deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan police’s anti-terrorist branch.
“We know that is part of a terrorist’s methodology: to check timings, layout and security precautions.”
Police also revealed that the rucksack-carried explosive devices thought to have been used by the four men, all British Muslims, contained peroxide.
“Traces of peroxide-based explosives were found in the devices that exploded on the seventh of July,” said a Metropolitan police spokesman.
The new CCTV pictures gave a chilling glimpse of the apparently meticulous preparations for the attack.
Mohammed Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Germaine Lindsay — the latter two carrying rucksacks — are pictured first in the early morning of June 28 at Luton rail station, just north of London.
Resembling a group of casual daytrippers in their casual T-shirts, jeans and baseball caps, other camera stills show them arriving at King’s Cross train station in central London and then heading into the underground subway network.
Police believe the trio, along with a fourth bomber Hasib Hussain, made an identical journey on July 7 before detonating their bombs on three subway trains and a bus.
Officers have pored over thousands of hours of camera footage to determine the movements of the bombers. Police think they spent around three hours in London on June 28, perhaps separating for a period before returning to Luton together.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Clarke said peroxide-based explosives had also been found also in a car used to transport three of the men to Luton station on July 7.
Khan, Tanweer and Hussain, all of Pakistani ethnic origin, drove from their home city of Leeds, northern England, and arrived at Luton station at 6:51 am, where they met Lindsay, a Jamaican-born British Muslim convert.
The four then traveled to King’s Cross in London, from where they fanned out to their targets.
Clarke revealed that under the front passenger seat of the men’s rented Nissan Micra, detectives had found a bag containing two more viable devices which contained peroxide-based explosive surrounded by nails.
But he said it would be speculation to suggest other bombers were expected to have turned up and used the bombs.
Forensic officers also found traces of HMTP, a type of peroxide explosive, in the car and recovered 14 bits of material, some of which appeared to be component parts for other potential devices.
Three of the July bombs exploded at underground stations to the east, west and south of King’s Cross. A fourth blast ripped through a bus in the centre of London.
According to reports, the bombers intended that the fourth bomb would explode on a subway train heading north from King’s Cross, forming the so-called “burning cross” described in a later claim of responsibility from a group linked to the al-Qaeda terror network.
However, Hussain was thwarted because northbound subway services were suspended that morning, meaning he boarded a bus. – AFP