British police search five homes over London bombings

[allemand]

LEEDS, England (AFP) - Police raided five locations in northern England in an operation "directly connected" with last week's bombings in London, but said no arrests had yet been made.

"There have been a series of searches carried out in Yorkshire. Those searches are still going on," said London's police chief Sir Ian Blair.

"There's very little else I can say at the moment, but this activity is directly connected to the outrages" on Thursday which killed at least 52 people and injured hundreds more, he told BBC radio. (...)

"Police are currently attending a fifth address. There are no arrests at this stage. The searches are in connection with the terrorist attacks in London on July 7. The operation continues," the spokesman said.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050712/wl_uk_afp/britainattackssearch_050712105647

[tenshi816]

1. Interesting - I live in West Yorkshire

My 14-year old son takes the train to school in Leeds.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[maddezmom]

2. British police launch raids linked to bombs probe, warn of more attacks

~snip~
"There are no arrests at this stage," a police spokesman told AFP. "The searches are in connection with the terrorist attacks in London on July 7. The operation continues."

West Yorkshire includes former industrial hubs such as Leeds and Bradford with large Muslim populations of south Asian origin. Britain's domestic Press Association said at least one of the raids was in Leeds.

Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair meanwhile told the BBC: "Another attack is likely. There's no doubt about that."

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050712/wl_afp/britainattacks_050712120853;_

[Mr Creosote]

3. According to News 24

armed police have surrounded a large house in the Hyde Park area of Leeds and there has been a controlled explosion

[tenshi816]

4. Wow - Hyde Park is where a lot of the student population

for Leeds University live.

Edited to say that some of the places the police are looking into are on the route I take when I drive into Leeds, so this is hitting pretty close to home for me.

[Mr Creosote]

14. Yeah me too

I have a stepdaughter and grandson in Leeds, and an Aunt in Luton.

[tenshi816]

17. What part of Leeds?

I'm in Ilkley, so not living in Leeds, but my son goes into Leeds for school.

One thing that strikes me about the Hyde Park house that police are investigating (the one where they did the controlled explosion) is that the Hyde Park/Burley Park areas are "studentland". What better place for a terrorist to "hide in plain sight", because the population there is so transient that people drift in and out all the time without calling attention to themselves. If the house does turn out to be where one of the bombers lived, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was rented as student accommodation.

Again, pure speculation on my part. Not too far-fetched though.

[maddezmom]

5. Report: Controlled Explosion in England

By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago



LEEDS, England - Police set off a controlled explosion Tuesday at a home in northern England hours after they searched five residences elsewhere in the city in the first raids linked to the London terrorist bombing investigation, broadcast reports said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050712/ap_on_re_eu/britain_bombings;_

[allemand]

6. Bomb squad blast into Leeds house

A controlled explosion has been carried out by army bomb disposal experts to gain access to a house in Leeds as part of the hunt for the London bombers. (...)

Elsewhere, police say they have found a car at Luton train station they believe may be connected to the attacks. (...)

Police cleared people from homes as well as a mosque, a health centre and an old people's home.

Parts of Beeston and Holbeck, suburbs of Leeds, have been cordoned off, as well as a street in Dewsbury near Leeds.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4674463.stm

[allemand]

7. Police find suspected car in London bombings

ONDON (Reuters) - British police closed down a railway station north of the capital on Tuesday to recover a car suspected of being involved in last week's London bomb attacks.

Bedfordshire police, working with London officers hunting the suspected al Qaeda bombers, said they had closed Luton station and cordoned off surrounding streets.

"Police believe the vehicle may be connected to the terrorist attacks in London on July 7 and will be examined in the car park for safety reasons before being taken away to a secure location," police said in a statement.

Trains have been prevented from running through the station until the operation, expected to last around three hours, is completed.
http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-07-12T143049Z_01_N12555103_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SECURITY-BRITAIN-CAR-DC.XML

[allemand]

9. Raids connected to identification of suicide bomber

LONDON (Reuters) - The bomber responsible for the attack on a London bus last week was killed in the blast, Sky television reported on Tuesday, quoting police sources. (...)

Sky said a decapitated head found near the scene had been that of the bomber.

Forensic tests then led police to carry out raids on Tuesday in Leeds, northern England and to a car at Luton railway station north of London, Sky said.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050712/ts_nm/security_britain_bomber_dc_1

[tenshi816]

10. This is also interesting.

A lot of people going down to London from the north of England (including me) will drive to Luton and use the station car park to leave their vehicles, then catch a train from Luton into King's Cross station. Doing it that way saves having to look for a place to park in London, which is a nightmare at the best of times. I guess even terrorists have to deal with things like that when they're transporting explosive devices.

Also, assuming that the bombers are connected with Leeds, if for some reason they decided to ditch the car altogether, they could hop directly onto a Leeds-bound train from King's Cross without having to bother going back to Luton.

Of course, it may not be significant at all. It's just creepy to me that these things are being discovered in places I go through on a fairly regular basis, and maybe I'm trying too hard to see things that aren't there.

[1932]

12. One scenario here: the bus bomber's bomb detonated unintentionally?

He intended to survive and return to Luton and drive home?

I wonder where he was going? I wonder if he was delayed and by the time he got to Kings Cross, all the subways were stopped so he had to revise the plan on the fly.

Maybe he did kill himself thinking that his cell was going to kill him for fucking up (assuming the others survived).

It would be amazing if the whole plot is uravelled becaust this one dead bomber left his car at the station and the police are then able to figure out everything about him and his whereabouts based on that car (which shouldn't be too difficult).

[tenshi816]

13. Exactly - that's what I wonder too. n/t

[Mr Creosote]

15. Total speculation on your part

but interesting nonetheless. I wonder how he/she planned to get back to Luton? Makes sense though - Luton and Leeds both on the M1.

[1932]

16. Oh yes. For the avoidance of doubt, I'm neither a police officer investi-

gating this crime, nor am I a terrorist, so YES, INDEED, THIS IS TOTAL SPECULATION.

(I was hoping that was inferred :) )

[tenshi816]

18. Yes, that's what caught my attention too,

Leeds and Luton on the M1, plus both places having trains that terminate at King's Cross station. Until last week it had never occurred to me to wonder how terrorists move bombs around, but they have to do it somehow.

[T_i_B]

19. St Pancras, not Kings Cross

It's only across the road from Kings Cross, and it shares a tube station but that's the station for trains to & from Luton, Leicester, Sheffield and Leeds.

Just being pedantic, that's all. :-)

[tenshi816]

21. I know, I'm terrible about lumping them together

because it's just easier than saying "King's Cross/St. Pancras", and it all seems like the same place to me. I just usually assume people know what I'm talking about, but I shouldn't assume that on DU where the majority of people haven't been to either part of that huge transport hub.

No problem with you being pedantic - I tend to be as well so we'll get along just fine! :hi:

[fedsron2us]

23. Thameslink trains also go from Luton to Kings Cross

[T_i_B]

24. Thameslink

If I'm not mistaken Thasmeslink trains go into their own station just down the road from Kings Cross, served by Kings Cross/St Pancras tube station as well! (At least that was the case last time I caught a Thameslink train!)

That gives you 3 train stations (2 of them quite major ones) all served by the same Tube Station, and we also have a Eurostar link being built to St Pancras too, which is explains the horrible modernisation job that's been done on the station.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Unsubstantiated report from BBC TV reporter

roughly confirms your theory - he said he was told a witness had seen 4 men leave the car at the station on Thursday morning.

[tenshi816]

22. It just kind of makes sense to me

because I've done it so often. If I want to take a train all the way down to London, I go from Leeds and it takes me straight in to King's Cross. However, if for some reason I need to take a car down, I always drive down the M1 motorway to Luton and leave my car in the covered car park there next to Luton station.

What got me thinking about this was the idea of people moving a large amount of explosives over the distance of a couple of hundred miles. Would they be more likely to risk doing it on a long train trip, or would they prefer the autonomy and anonymity of a car for the biggest part of the journey, and then get on a train for the last short hop to their destination?

[LibDemAlways]

8. The British authorities are treating this as a

criminal investigation. Blair has yet to appear at Kings Cross station with a megaphone. He hasn't announced plans to bomb the shit out of a third world country in retaliation, either.

How refreshing.

[cmd]

11. It's the proper response

Too bad we didn't do the same after 9/11. Hundreds of Americans would still be alive today.