U.K. bomb probe focuses on chemist, Briton
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-15 18:48

FBI agents helped in the search for an Egyptian-born chemist who studied briefly at a North Carolina university as the British bombing investigation focused on a possible al-Qaida connection.

London police released security camera footage showing one of the four suicide bombers — 18-year-old Hasib Hussain — wearing a backpack as he passed through Luton train station north of London on his way to the capital.

Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police's anti-terrorist branch, asked anyone who may be able to help police trace Hussein's movements before he boarded a double-decker bus in central London to come forward.

"Did you see this man ...? Was he alone or with others? Do you know the route he took ...?" were some of the questions Clarke fired off at a news conference on Thursday.

In the northern city of Leeds, where investigators believe the bombers lived, authorities searched another address in an effort to unravel the network behind the attacks.

The Times of London said authorities were seeking a Pakistani Briton with possible ties to al-Qaida followers in the United States. The report said he may have organized the July 7 attacks and chosen the targets but left Britain the day before.

ABC News, citing unidentified officials, reported that the attacks were connected to an al-Qaida plot planned two years ago in Lahore, Pakistan. Names on a computer seized last year from Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an alleged Pakistani computer expert for al-Qaida, matched a suspected cell of young Britons of Pakistani origin, the report said.

Authorities have now discovered ties between Mohammed Sidique Khan — one of the July 7 bombers — and members of that suspected cell, ABC said.

On this side of the Atlantic, FBI agents in Raleigh, N.C., joined the search for the Egyptian chemist, Magdy Asi el-Nashar, a 33-year-old former North Carolina State University graduate student.

University spokesman Keith Nichols said a person named el-Nashar studied at North Carolina State as a graduate student in chemical engineering for a semester beginning in January 2000. Nichols said the school has gathered records in anticipation of being contacted by the FBI.

British Broadcasting Corp. television and Sky News in Britain reported that one of the bombers was a Jamaican-born Briton they identified as Lindsey Germaine. Jamaican Information Minister Burchell Whiteman said the former British colony in the Caribbean was ready to give whatever help it could.

The death toll rose by two to 54, including the bombers, after an injured man died and another body was recovered from the wreckage of one of three subway trains targeted About 700 people were wounded.

Hussain is one of two attackers police have formally identified. The other is Shahzad Tanweer, 22, who like Hussain lived in Leeds.

Clarke said Tanweer was responsible for attacking a subway train between Liverpool Street and Aldgate stations.

British media has identified Sidique Khan, 30, as well as Germaine, as the other two suicide bombers. Tanweer, Hussain and Sidique Khan are all thought to be Britons of Pakistani origin.

A senior intelligence officer in Pakistan told The Associated Press that investigators there were looking into a tip that one bomber may have visited Pakistan last year and spent time at an Islamic school.

Back in Britain the victims of the bombings were remembered Thursday by hundreds of thousands of Britons who stopped what they were doing to pause and observe two minutes of silent reflection.

Office workers in London poured into the streets for a silent tribute and construction crews stood with their hard hats at their sides. Tourists and Londoners alike stopped on the sidewalks outside the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey and bowed their heads as drivers ignored green lights and traffic came to a standstill.

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