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All four bombs failed july 21 { July 26 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/international/europe/26london.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/international/europe/26london.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/26/MNGESDTHCC1.DTL
Police ID 2 suspects, dud bomb containers
- Alan Cowell, New York Times
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
London -- British police Monday identified by name two of the four men suspected of trying to set off bombs on the London transportation network last week and said the men had used a Tupperware-like container to build the devices.
Peter Clarke, the head of London's anti-terrorism police, also said that there were "clear similarities" between the four failed bombs used Thursday on three subway trains and a bus and a fifth device found Saturday in a park in northwest London. The discovery raised the possibility that a fifth bomber had been involved in the failed attacks Thursday but had for some reason abandoned his explosives.
Clarke renewed his appeal to the public for information about the suspects in Thursday's attacks, underscoring the urgency of police efforts to apprehend the four men and forestall any further attempts at violence. Police have said repeatedly that they do not rule out more attacks.
At a news conference Monday, Prime Minister Tony Blair said he "deeply regretted" the police killing of 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, whom the police mistook for a suicide bomber and shot eight times, not five times as first reported.
"We are all desperately sorry for the death of an innocent person, and I understand the feelings of the young man's family," Blair said. "But we also have to understand that the police are doing their job in very, very difficult circumstances."
So far, five men have been arrested under British counterterrorism laws in connection with the failed bombings, but Clarke indicated that the five did not include the four main suspects, images of whom have been widely distributed.
Speaking at a briefing for reporters, Clarke displayed an example of a plastic, white-lidded container called a Delta 6250, with a capacity of a bit more than one and a half gallons. It is made in India and sold in about 100 British outlets.
Investigators say there is mounting evidence to suggest the two attacks were linked. The backpacks used in the July 7 and Thursday attacks were similar, as were the explosives in plastic food containers inside the backpacks, police said Monday. Analysts have theorized that the bombs in the two sets of attacks were made at the same time, but that the second set of bombs may have deteriorated during the two weeks between the attacks, explaining why they failed to explode.
On Monday, police also raided a home in the New Southgate area of north London that had been visited recently by one of the failed bombers, identified by Clarke as Muktar Said Ibrahim, aged 27, who also goes by the name of Muktar Mohammed Said. The man was said to have tried to bomb a No. 26 bus Thursday in east London and was one of the two men identified by name Monday.
The second of the two suspects identified by name was Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, accused of trying to bomb a Victoria Line subway train between Oxford Circus and Warren Street in central London Thursday. The police did not provide any details about the four men, although some of them have been reported to be from East Africa.
In each case, Clarke said, the assailants tried to set off explosives carried in sports bags or small backpacks, then fled on foot when the bombs failed to detonate.
"Initial forensic examination of the four partially detonated devices has revealed clear similarities with yet another bomb which was found by a member of the public on Saturday, 23rd July," he said. "This had apparently been abandoned in an open area at Little Wormwood Scrubs."
"All five of these bombs had been placed inside dark-colored rucksacks or sports bags," he said. "All of them were made using the same type of plastic food-storage container.
"My appeal is to any shopkeepers and shop workers who may have sold five or more of these identical food containers in recent months, perhaps to the same customer. Do you remember selling a number of these white-topped containers at the same time?"
The failed bombings were the beginning of a series of events culminating in the fatal shooting of Menezes, mistaken by police for a suicide bombing suspect at Stockwell station in south London -- the subway station said by Clarke to have been used by three of those attempting bombings last Thursday.
A spokeswoman for the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating the shooting, said Monday that he had been shot eight times -- seven times to the head and once to the shoulder.
Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, met Monday with the Brazilian foreign minister, Celso Amorim, after Brazil demanded an inquiry, and the dead man's family threatened to sue the British police. Straw said that the family's claim for compensation would be handled "sympathetically and quickly."
In Menezes' hometown of Gonzaga, the Brazilian flag was flown at half staff in front of the town hall, and hundreds of people gathered for a protest.
The mayor, Julio de Souza, told the Associated Press: "It's easy for Blair to apologize, but it doesn't mean very much. What happened to English justice and England, a place where police patrol unarmed?"
Menezes had been working in Britain in hopes of buying a cattle ranch in Brazil. His relatives said he was working legally in Britain and had no reason to fear police, although the BBC reported Menezes' visa had expired, perhaps explaining why he ran. But his family said his visa was still valid.
The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.
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