UK police said this morning they searched five homes in northern England. They described the search as forming a “significant” part of the investigation into last week’s London bombings. I think it’s useless speculating at this stage what this might mean. I also think it is important that the police are seen to be pro-active in the investigation, public confidence in the security services is an important part of the present picture. I will update this post during the day as the need arises.
Update 11:50 CET
Incidentally, a piece of terminology: saying ‘no arrests have been made” doesn’t have any deep significance in British parlance, since people may be ‘helping the police with their enquiries’ prior to being arrested and formally charged (or not). (This is presumeably even more complicated under the various terrorism acts which I am not especially familiar with). The issue is sufficiently serious to have evacuated part of the area. The raids were in Leeds.
Update 15:15 CET
Police have just announced that they carried out a controlled explosion to gain entry to a home in the Burley area of Leeds, justy a few miles away from Beeston where the original raid took place.
Update 16:00 CET
It has now been revealed that troops from the bomb disposal unit were involved in controlled explosion. The context is one of an Asian district of Leeds. This has implications but we shouldn’t yet jump to conclusions. The Times has fuller details:
“More than 500 people were evacuated from surrounding homes, businesses and the local mosque prior to the detonation at just after 1.30pm.
Armed police immediately surrounded the flat in Hyde Park Road, Burley .
The explosion came six hours after five other homes in Colwyn Road, Tempest Road and Shalford Street in the mainly Asian suburb of Beeston, three miles south-east of Burley, were sealed off following a series of dawn raids.
Neighbours of one of the addresses reported that a 22-year-old man who lived there with his family had been missing since Thursday.”
OK, let me make one reasonable conjecture based on the info we have so far. The raid in Leeds is based on forensics of the remains found on around the bus. This could have been one of the people who planted the bombs. If this is the case – and the Times certainly also leads us in the direction – one part of the story may be about to become clearer.
Update 17:15 CET
My conjceture has now been confirmed. Sky are now reporting that a decapitated head found near the scene of the bus bomb had been that of the bomber. Forensic tests then led police to carry out raids in Leeds, and to a car at Luton railway station north of London. This also seems to add strength to the Kings Cross meetup hypothesis (see below in comments). Sky are also claiming that there have been arrests.
Thanks for the news. I’ve linked to the post at “A Logical Voice” (http://logicvoice.blogspot.com)
There’s another weird angle. One of the missing is Ihab Slimane. There is some confusion about his age. He is variously described as late teens, early 20s. This has all the appearances of another sad case — comes to London from France to learn English and work, and gets killed (on the Piccadilly line bomb). But a news report on France 2 (either Sun or Mon night) discussed but then dismissed rumours that the police are wondering if he was part of the plot. The Leeds raids suggest that the police are moving in a different direction, though.
@ P O’Neill
OK. I think for the moment the idea of innocent until proven otherwise is best to maintain, especially in the case of someone who has died, but, as I’m about to update, my conjecture has now been confirmed, though this would only be one of the bombers. I think we should remember no information has yet really been released about the train in the tunnel at Kings Cross. We don’t even know (eg) if the train could have been stuck in the tunnel due to congestion (this happens often on the tube) and another of the bombers caught. We don’t in fact know hardly anything. So it’s best to wait. This in the Times was interesting:
“It has also been suggested that the bombers could have met at King?s Cross station, as all three Tube trains which were hit had passed through there roughly eight minutes before the blasts. The bus which was ripped apart by an explosion 57 minutes after the Tube bombs detonated had also come from the King’s Cross direction.”
If this was the case then one of the trains didn’t get very far. Also it leaves the bus as even more of a mystery. If this was an intentional suicide, since the bomber seems to have been leaving Kings Cross, and not trying to reach the tube, this unfortunately will probably mean that the investigation in Leeds will hit a dead end, since the identification will have been forseen.
OTOH if they met at Kings Cross, then interviewing people who were in the area might bring up something, although again you really need someone to make a slip somewhere (or an insider leak, which with qaeda is unlikely) to be able to get hold of valid information.
Just thoughts. It certainly isn’t looking very amateur right now.