LONDON, Aug 25: As British police probe the final hour of one of the four London bombers, reports on Thursday claimed he ate a snack at a McDonald’s and left frantic phone messages for his accomplices before blowing himself up.

The reports in several British newspapers appear to shed some light on the ‘missing hour’ between the synchronized July 7 suicide attacks on three subway trains and 18-year-old Hassib Hussain’s solo strike on a bus.

The Times speculated that Hussain, the youngest member of the gang, simply lost his nerve about also targeting a London Underground train after the four had split up at King’s Cross station in the north of the capital.

It quoted a source close to the investigation wondering who then persuaded the young Muslim from Leeds, northern England, to choose a double-decker bus for a target.

A police spokeswoman at Scotland Yard refused to comment on the reports.

Hussain detonated his bomb at Tavistock Square, central London, at 9:47am. The blast came 57 minutes after the three other bombers hit subway trains travelling south, east and west from King’s Cross.

Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity left 56 people dead, including the four attackers.

It has been claimed that Hussain was meant to target a northbound Northern Line subway train to create a so-called burning cross through the heart of the city, but that this plan was thwarted after the line was suspended.

However, a spokesman for the network operator, Transport for London, said all six subway lines running through King’s Cross were working at 8:50am, the time of the bombings.

“The theory that he took a bus because he couldn’t take the Northern Line is not correct because he could have taken the Northern Line because it was running,” the spokesman told AFP on Thursday.

Closed circuit television (CCTV) footage captured all four men arriving at King’s Cross on an over-ground train from Luton, a town north of London.

The Independent and Times newspapers reported that Hussain was later caught on closed circuit television camera entering a McDonald’s outlet in King’s Cross.

“There appears to be no evidence Hussain met anyone else during his visit to McDonald’s and it is, as yet, unclear which route he took to his target,” the Independent said.

The Times said Hussain — knowing he and his team were meant to sychronize their attack — rushed out of the station and into the fast food restaurant, where he tried to reach the other three by telephone just before 9:00am.

By then they were already dead.

It said that he first tried to call Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, the group’s alleged ringleader, saying: “I can’t get on a train. What should I do?”

The young man hurriedly left the same message for Shehzhad Tanweer, 22, and 19-year-old Jermaine Lindsay.

The Times quoted a police source who had listened to the calls saying: “His voice was getting more and more frantic with each call.”

Hussain’s final actions have cast doubt on whether there was, as suggested, an Al Qaeda mastermind or support network behind the carnage as he would more likely have telephoned them for help.—AFP