LONDON, July 25: British police on Monday named two suspects wanted for trying to set off bombs across London’s transport network last week as they scrambled to track down the attackers and stop them striking again. The botched attacks raised fears among Londoners that the city could be a frequent target for militants, coming just two weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 people on July 7.
Anxious to get public attention back on the search for the attackers after killing a Brazilian electrician in error, police named two of the four suspects they have been seeking since releasing security camera images last week.
“I hope that by setting out some of what we have been able to learn over the past few days, the public may be able to contribute even more to the progress of the investigation,” London’s anti-terrorist police chief Peter Clarke said. He named the two as Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, and Muktar Said-Ibrahim or Muktar Mohammed-Said, aged 27. Police raided a house in north London that Omar had recently visited.
Clarke did not say whether they were Britons or foreigners. The four men who carried out the July 7 attacks — which officials have linked to Al Qaeda — were all British Muslims, three of them of Pakistani origin. Clarke also revealed a bomb abandoned in a park in west London was similar to those from the failed attacks.
Police were trying to establish if the device belonged to a fifth man or if one of the attackers had carried two bombs. Two people were arrested on Monday as part of the investigation, bringing the total held to five.
LOOKING FOR LINKS: Both waves of attacks targeted three underground trains and a double-decker bus and police are trying to establish whether the links go deeper — including a possibility some members of both groups took part in a whitewater rafting trip to Wales.
Although the second group’s bombs failed to explode for reasons that are unclear, the fact the attackers remain at large has added to public anxiety.
“We can’t rule out another attack. We’re doing everything we can to track these people down,” a police spokeswoman said.
Police said all five bombs from the latest attack were concealed in plastic food containers manufactured in India and hidden in rucksacks. Clarke showed the clear cylindrical container at a news conference.
“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,” he said.—Reuters
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