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British Police Name Two Bombing Suspects | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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London, AP – Police on Monday released the names of two of the four men suspected of taking part in the failed July 21 bombings and said a fifth device similar to others used in the botched attacks was found in a west London park.

Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized Monday for the police killing of a Brazilian electrician mistaken for a terrorist.

Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch, released new images of some of the men who tried to bomb three subway cars and a bus. He identified two of the suspects as Muktar Said Ibraihim, also known as Muktar Mohammed Said, 27, and Yasin Hassan Omar, 24.

Police also said they arrested two more suspects Monday in connection with last week”s attempted attacks, bringing to five the number in custody.

Police did not release any details of the arrests, except to say they were not carried out at the home of one of the four suspected bombers being searched. A police spokeswoman, who asked not to be identified in accordance with British practice, would not say where the two were arrested.

Two other men were arrested in London”s southern Stockwell neighborhood Friday and one was arrested Saturday in nearby Tulse Hill — all &#34on suspicion of the commission, instigation or preparation of acts of terrorism&#34 for the July 21 attacks, when bombs only partially detonated and no one was injured.

In making his apology, Blair also defended the police for Friday”s shooting.

&#34We are all desperately sorry for the death of an innocent person and I understand entirely the feelings of the young man”s family, but we also have to understand the police are doing their job in very, very difficult circumstances,&#34 Blair said.

&#34Had the circumstances been different and had this turned out to be a terrorist, and they had failed to take that action, they would have been criticized the other way.&#34

The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that the visa of electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, had expired, suggesting this may have been why he ran from police Friday before being shot. However, Menezes” cousin said the visa was still valid.

Menezes” family on Monday threatened to take legal action.

&#34They have to pay for that in many ways, because if they do not, they are going to kill many people,&#34 his cousin, Alex Pereira, told BBC television. &#34They killed my cousin; they could kill anyone.&#34

Menezes was followed by plainclothes officers after he left an apartment bloc in Tulse Hill that was under surveillance. Wearing a padded jacket, he boarded a bus and traveled to the nearby Stockwell subway station. According to officials, his clothing and behavior aroused the suspicions of police, who ordered him to stop.

Witnesses said Menezes ran into a subway car, where officers shot him. It was unclear why Menezes, who spoke English, did not stop.

Investigators are pursuing leads that seemed to indicate a link between the July 21 attacks and the suicide bombings two weeks earlier that killed the four bombers and 52 other people.

Police say they are looking for more suspects because investigators believe a wide network of al-Qaida-linked operatives staged the attacks. The network could include bomb-makers and those who coached the young suicide attackers before their mission, according to police.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said he believed al-Qaida terrorists were involved in both attacks.

&#34The way in which al-Qaida operates is not a sort of classic cell structure,&#34 Ian Blair told Britain”s Sky News television on Sunday. &#34It has facilitators, so we”re looking for the bomb makers, we”re looking for the chemists, we”re looking for the financiers, we”re looking for the people who groomed these young people, so it will be a wide network that we”re trying to penetrate.&#34

Asked if the two attacks were connected, Ian Blair said &#34we have no proof that they are linked, but clearly there is a pattern here.&#34

In releasing the two suspected bombers” names, Clarke said an &#34initial forensic examination of the four partially detonated bombs has revealed clear similarities&#34 with a fifth device found in west London”s Little Wormwood Scrubs park. The bomb, in a dark-colored backpack, was found last Saturday and neutralized in a controlled-detonation Sunday.

All five of the bombs were in the same type of plastic food storage container and put into dark-colored backpacks, Clarke said. He said the food containers, manufactured in India, were sold in about 100 stores around Britain, and he appealed to shopkeepers to call police if they remembered anyone buying them.

Ian Blair said police were &#34still anxious for any sighting of the four individuals&#34 whose images were released after being spotted on closed-circuit TV video fleeing the scenes of the failed bombings, suggesting that none of the four are among the men now in custody.

Police were reportedly investigating whether some of the July 21 suspects may have visited the same Welsh whitewater rafting center as two of the July 7 suicide bombers: Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shahzad Tanweer.

The two bombers went whitewater rafting there July 4, according to the National Whitewater Center. Police have refused to comment on reports that a brochure for the rafting center was found in an explosives-laden knapsack that failed to detonate on a bus July 21.

In emotionally charged visits, relatives and friends of people killed July 7 visited three subway stations, and a central London street where a double-decker bus was blown up, to pay their respects. Many broke down in tears as they laid flowers at the sites of the explosions. Earlier, more than 230 relatives and friends attended a briefing on the investigation by police.