New evidence suggests four suicide bombers, including at least three Britons of Pakistani descent, carried out the terror attacks in London, officials said. Surveillance cameras captured the men as they arrived in the capital 20 minutes before the explosions began.
Police raided six homes in Leeds on Tuesday searching for explosives and computer files that would shed more light on what were believed to be the first suicide bombings in Western Europe. They arrested a man, identified by the British news agency Press Association as a relative of one of the suspected bombers.
A city councilor said that at least three of the presumed suicide bombers were British citizens of Pakistani ancestry.
News reports have identified the suspects as Shahzad Tanweer, a 22-year-old, cricket-loving sports science graduate; Hasib Hussain, 19; and Mohammed Sidique Khan, the 30-year-old father of an eight-month-old baby.
The Press Association, citing police sources, said yesterday that police had identified the fourth suspect but no name was reported.
Police have not confirmed the identities of any of the suspects.
The Press Association said the men had driven a rental car to Luton, 50km north of London, and then boarded a commuter train to London's King's Cross station. Police closed Luton's train station on Tuesday and carried out nine controlled explosions on a parked car, which the BBC reported contained explosives.
Closed-circuit TV video showed all four men arriving at King's Cross by 8:30am last Thursday, about 20 minutes before the blasts began, said Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch.
Two militant Islamic groups have claimed responsibility for the bombings, which killed at least 52 people on three subway trains and on a bus.
Although police stopped short of calling them suicide attacks, Clarke said "strong forensic and other evidence" suggested one of the suspects was killed in a subway bombing and property belonging to the three others was found at the locations of the other blasts.
"The investigation quite early led us to have concerns about the movements and activities of four men, three of whom came from the West Yorkshire area," Clarke said.
The West Yorkshire region includes Leeds, and the homes of the three suspects from the city were among the six that were searched on Tuesday.
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 yesterday.
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