Britain
woke up on Sunday to a chilling image of the four London bomb
suspects, taken as they headed to the scene of the attacks, after
Prime Minister Tony Blair branded Islamic extremism an "evil
ideology".
Plastered over Sunday newspapers' front pages, a security camera
image released by Scotland Yard showed the four men, toting large
backpacks, about to head from Luton station, north of London, to
King's Cross station, where they were filmed just before the
bombings.
Scotland Yard made a fresh appeal to witnesses for any information
that could help unravel the events leading up to the
bombings.
Speaking at a Labour Party conference in the British capital on
Saturday, in his most forceful speech since the July 7 attacks,
Blair said: "What we are confronting here is an evil
ideology.
"It is not a clash of civilisations - all civilised people, Muslim
or other, feel revulsion at it.
"But it is a global struggle, and it is a battle of ideas, hearts
and minds, both within Islam and outside it," he said.
With the death toll from the attacks now standing at 55, with some
700 others injured, police confirmed for the first time the
identity of the last two bomb suspects: Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30,
and Germaine Lindsay, 19.
Police believe Khan set off the explosion at Edgware Road, while
Lindsay is thought to have caused the explosion between King's
Cross and Russell Square Underground stations - the most deadly of
the four rush-hour attacks.
Both died in the bombings, along with the two other named suspects,
Hasib Hussain, 18, and Shahzad Tanweer, 22.
Khan, Hussain and Tanweer were Britons with family roots in
Pakistan, from the Leeds area in West Yorkshire, northern England,
while Lindsay, a Jamaican immigrant to Britain, came from
Aylesbury, north-west of London.
Lindsay's wife, Samantha Lewthwaite, issued a statement saying she
was "horrified", describing Lindsay as "a good and loving husband
and a brilliant father, who showed absolutely no sign of doing this
atrocious crime".
Khan's grief-stricken family alleged he had been "brainwashed" into
terrorism, expressing their "deepest and heartfelt sympathy" for
the victims.
However, in a potentially embarrassing revelation for the
government, The Sunday Telegraph reported that Britain's domestic
intelligence agency MI5 had opened a file on Khan last year, but
closed it after ruling he posed no threat.
Khan's name cropped up during an investigation into an alleged bomb
plot on a London target in 2004, but security services decided not
to put him under watch, The Times reported, quoting an unnamed
senior government official.
Britain's Home Office had no immediate comment on the claims.
Britain is linking the London bombings to Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda network, which notoriously carried out the September 11
attacks in the United States in 2001 as well as the Madrid commuter
train bombings in March 2004.
Blair strongly rejected claims that the London bombings were a
response to his decision to take Britain into the Iraq war.
But in a significant break with Labour party ranks over the
bombings, former British cabinet minister Clare Short said in an
interview she "had no doubt" the London bombings were linked to the
Iraq war.
The fast-moving investigation has shifted to Cairo in recent days,
where British officials were expected to inquire into an Egyptian
arrested on Thursday on suspicion of involvement in the
bombings.
But Egypt's Interior Minister Habib al-Adly has dismissed reports
linking Magdy Mahmud Mustafa Nashar, 33, a chemistry doctorate
student at Leeds University, to the attacks as "unfounded and only
hasty deductions".
In Pakistan, meanwhile, security officials said two of the
suspected bombers - Khan and Tanweer - travelled together to
Pakistan last November, returning to Britain in February this
year.
Hussain, the officials said, travelled separately to Pakistan at an
unknown time last year.
One of the officials said they were trying to establish the men's
movements while in Pakistan, notably whether they made contact with
a group led by alleged al-Qaeda number three, Abu Faraj al-Libbi,
seized in Pakistan in May.
British police also said they were extending the detention of a
suspect arrested last week in West Yorkshire under the Terrorism
Act 2000, to Tuesday.
Meanwhile, as police said searches were continuing at eight
addresses in West Yorkshire and Aylesbury, the wreckage of the bus
blown up in Tavistock Square - killing Melbourne man Sam Ly and 13
others - was hauled away for examination.
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