Ooops! Time to eat crow. It seems they were all suicide bombers and 3 of 4 were British nationals.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162358,00.html
London Bombers Believed to Be Homegrown
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
LONDON — At least three of the four suspected homicide bombers who carried out the deadly attacks on London's transit system last week were born in England and all four of the men came from Leeds in the English Midlands, according to British media.
All four men are believed to have been killed in the blasts last Thursday, which claimed at least 52 lives on three subway trains and on a bus.
According to British media reports, three of the four are described as British nationals of Pakistani origin, all of whom lived in and around Leeds (search), which is heavily populated with lower- and lower-middle-class blue-collar workers.
Many Pakistanis immigrated to the area several decades ago to work in textile mills, many of which have since shut down. The area is rife with ethnic tension and was the site of notorious race riots in 2001.
Christina Corbett, a London intelligence analyst, told FOX News that if the attacks were the work of Al Qaeda (search), the terror network would most likely have sent an expert to train the cell and extracted this person before the attack was carried out.
"It's highly likely that these four men were not working alone," Corbett said. "One of these men reportedly was 19, which is way too young to be training in a [terrorist] camp in Afghanistan (search)."
Corbett said the developments in the case could help uncover other terror cells operating in the United Kingdom.
"I don't think that further attacks have been ruled out; they were certainly expected after the [bombings in London]," Corbett said. "But as the criminal investigation proceeds, it will certainly become more difficult for the terrorists to carry out their activities."
Cops Search for Explosives, Evidence
Police raided six homes in Leeds Tuesday searching for explosives and computer files. They arrested a man, identified by the British news agency Press Association as a relative of one of the suspected bombers.
Acting on six warrants, British soldiers blasted their way into an unoccupied Leeds row house. Streets were cordoned off and about 500 people were evacuated. Hours earlier, police searched five homes elsewhere in the city. Police still weren't letting the evacuees return to their homes early Wednesday.
Mohammed Iqbal, a town councilor who represents the City-on-Hunslet section of Leeds, told AP that all of the homes raided belong to "British citizens of Pakistani origin."
Three of the homes were in the neighborhood he represents, Iqbal said in a phone call with AP's office in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. He said he had just met with police about the investigation.
"This is not good for Muslims," Iqbal said. "We have businesses here. There will be a backlash."
Did Bomber Blunder?
One of the suspects had been reported missing by his family at 10 p.m. Thursday, and some of his property was found on the double-decker bus in which 13 died, Peter Clarke said.
Some witness accounts suggested the bus bomber may have blundered, blowing up the wrong target and accidentally killing himself. A witness who got off the crowded bus just before it exploded told AP he saw an agitated man in his 20s fiddling anxiously with something in his bag.
"This young guy kept diving into this bag or whatever he had in front of his feet, and it was like he was taking a couple of grapes off a bunch of grapes, both hands were in the bag," said Richard Jones, 61, of Bracknell, west of London. "He must have done that at least every minute if not every 30 seconds."
One theory suggested the attacker may have intended to leave his bomb on the subway but was unable to board because his coconspirators had already shut the system down.
Investigators also found personal documents bearing the names of two of the other men near seats on the Aldgate and Edgware lines. Police did not identify the men.
Leeds, about 185 miles north of London, has a population of about 715,000. About 15 percent of the residents are Muslim, and many come from a tight-knit Pakistani community, mostly from Mirpur, south of Islamabad in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Other pockets of the community are mostly Arab.
Khalid Muneer, 28, a spokesman for the Hyde Park Mosque in Leeds, said the community was surprised by the raids and police claims that the bombers may have come from there.
"That connection would surprise us all, even shock the whole community. We still think it's too early to say," he told AP, adding that Muslims in the area were not opposed to Britain.
"I've seen no calls in this area for jihad against British or American forces. You will not get that sentiment expressed around this mosque."
Profiles of the Suspects
Closed-circuit TV video showed all four men arriving at King's Cross by 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, about 20 minutes before the blasts began, said Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch.
U.S. intelligence agencies are checking the names of the London bombers against their databases looking for any U.S. connection, President Bush told chief executives at a private White House meeting Tuesday.
The three suspects appear to have come from a moderately affluent sect of British society. They reportedly rode in a rental car to London, toting military style backpacks. The fourth bomber remains unidentified, but is believed to be from the Luton area northwest of London.
Below are profiles of the bombers from Sky News:
Shehzad Tanweer
Born on Dec. 15, 1982, at St Luke's Maternity Hospital in Bradford, he lived all his life in the Beeston area of Leeds. His father, Mohammed Mumtaz Tanweer, was born in Pakistan and owns a fish and chip shop near their home on Colwyn Road. The family also owns a butcher shop specializing in halal foods for orthodox Muslims.
Neighbors described the 22-year-old Tanweer to local reporters as a "good Muslim" who lived with his parents, younger brother and two sisters in a semi-detached white house. He reportedly attended Wortley High School before attending Leeds Metropolitan University. The sports science graduate was said to have loved cricket.
Tanweer reportedly traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan within the last six months. Sources said there was "strong" forensic evidence linking him to the blast on the Underground train near Aldgate Station.
Hasib Mir Hussain
Hussain's disappearance on the day of the attacks provided one of the vital clues that led police to Leeds yesterday. The 19-year-old was reported missing by his mother at 10.20 p.m. on Thursday after failing to return home from London.
He had told his parents that he was going to the capital on the day of the bombings with friends. Hussain lived with his parents in the Leeds suburb of Holbeck, where a three-story red-bricked terrace house in Colenso Mount was searched.
Hussain is described as one of four children born to factory-worker parents who both emigrated from Pakistan. One neighbor said the family had lived in the house for more than 20 years and Hussain was born in the house. Hussain reportedly attended Matthew Murray High School and apparently became very religious two years ago after a lengthy period of adolescent troublemaking. His driver's license and cash cards were found in the mangled wreckage of the No. 30 bus, which blew up in Tavistock Square and killed 13.
Mohammed Sadique Khan
The third man to be named as a suspect came from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire. Khan is also of Pakistani origin; the 30-year-old was married to a woman named Hasina and the couple had a baby girl who is thought to be about 8 months old.
Khan, 30, originally lived in Beeston but moved to Lees Holm in Dewsbury about five months ago. Neighbors say he worked with disabled children while his wife was involved in education. His mother-in-law, Farida Patel, lives with her son, Arshad, nearby, in a house that is also believed to have been raided by police.
Authorities removed a silver Honda Accord from outside of Khan's home yesterday. The property remained clad in scaffolding and white plastic sheeting today. Documents belonging to Khan were found in the debris of the Edgware Road blast.
Britain has produced a handful of would-be bombers over the last five years but, until last Thursday, only one successfully completed a mission. That bomber was Asif Hanif, 21, from London, who walked into Mike's Bar, a blues joint on the seafront at Tel Aviv, in 2003 and blew himself up, killing two musicians and a waitress and injuring more than 40 others. His British accomplice, Omar Khan Sharif, 27, was a father of two from Derby. He went into the bar but failed to detonate his bomb and, after a scuffle, escaped. His decomposed body was found a week later floating in the sea near the bar.
Sky News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
