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A city in silent grieving

Londoners observe 2-minute memorial of quiet as police give public details of 4 suicide bombings

BY TINA SUSMAN | STAFF CORRESPONDENT

July 15, 2005

LONDON - For once, the city was silent or as silent as a city this size could be at high noon on a sunny summer's day. Buses and taxis pulled to the curbs. Pedestrians stopped in their tracks. Voices fell to whispers. Even cell phones stopped ringing as London set aside two minutes yesterday for a silent tribute to the dozens killed a week earlier in what police say were a series of suicide bombings on the public transportation system.

In their first public acknowledgment that suicide attackers had struck, police said forensic and other evidence indicated that four bombers died in blasts at three Underground stations and on a double-decker bus the morning of July 7. They also released a snapshot of the suspected bus bomber, Hasib Mir Hussain, 18, as he lugged a knapsack through a train station that morning, presumably en route to his fatal mission.

"We need to establish his movements," Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch, said as investigators stepped up appeals for information that could lead to others involved in the attacks.

Hussain remains a particular mystery because his bomb went off nearly an hour after those in the subways, which ripped through the King's Cross, Edgware Road and Aldgate stations.

According to police, the men caught a 7:48 a.m. train in Luton, about 35 miles north of central London, then separated at the King's Cross station.

"The question I'm asking the public is, did you see this man at King's Cross? Was he alone or with others?" said Clarke, sitting in front of a huge picture of Hussain caught by closed-circuit cameras at the Luton station.

Why Hussain set off his bomb after the others, and in a bus instead of the Underground, are among many questions facing investigators. The identities of some of the bombers, who were among at least 54 people to die in the attacks, had yet to be confirmed, and police were searching for accomplices.

"We are as certain as we can be that four people were killed and they were the four people carrying bombs," said London's police commissioner, Ian Blair. "We don't know if there is a fifth man, or a sixth man, a seventh man." Police have confirmed Hussain and Shehzad Tanweer, 22, as suspected bombers. Another has tentatively been named as Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, and British media yesterday identified a Jamaican-born Briton from Aylesbury, northwest of London, as one of the four. Police raided a home there yesterday but did not give details.

Police also turned attention to an Egyptian man, Magdy el-Nashar, 33, who studied at North Carolina State University in Raleigh in 2000. Until March, he was a chemistry student in Leeds, where the bombs were made and where Hussain lived.

El-Nashar's former landlord, Ghazan Khan, described him as "good as gold," a devout Muslim who was usually the first to arrive at the local mosque each day. Colleagues said they had not seen him since early July.

Clarke said leads were "emerging literally by the hour" and that 500 witnesses had been interviewed. "We now have a much clearer understanding of what happened," he said.

As the bells of Big Ben chimed 12, Londoners were joined by people around the world for two minutes of silence, from Tiger Woods at the British Open in Scotland to U.S. first lady Laura Bush at a genocide memorial in Rwanda. In Madrid, where 191 people died in last year's train bombings, officials observed the silence outside town hall. Sirens wailed across Paris, and foreign troops in Afghanistan stood at attention.

The normally chaotic streets around King's Cross station stopped like a video on freeze-frame as thousands of people stood shock-still, many sweating profusely in the near-90-degree heat. The only sound came from idling engines and from the shuffling of feet as people strained to see the thousands of bouquets wilting at the memorial that has sprung up. Red Cross workers stood there with tissues for tearful visitors.

Prime Minister Tony Blair observed the silence in the garden of his official residence. Queen Elizabeth II stood outside Buckingham Palace. Even jets at Heathrow Airport sat quietly.

Later, thousands jammed Trafalgar Square for a vigil both somber and defiant, clapping heartily as speakers said the country would not be cowed. "People need to mourn, but you've got to be defiant as well," said Stephen Adelman, 58, a London businessman. "If you don't carry on with your life after you've mourned, you let these guys win."

Staff correspondent Letta Tayler in Beeston contributed to this story.

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A city in silent grieving

Londoners observe 2-minute memorial of quiet as police give public details of 4 suicide bombings

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