London bombers 'knew they were on a suicide mission'

Published on Tuesday 19 July 2005 01:30

THE four bombers who attacked trains and a bus in London almost certainly triggered their explosives by hand, knowing their deaths were certain, investigators have concluded.

Reinforcing the picture of the four men as committed terrorists fully aware of their actions, the huge police and intelligence inquiry has also cast doubt on earlier reports that they were supported by a fifth man during the attacks or by an international mastermind who flew out of Britain hours before the blasts.

Officers who reviewed CCTV footage of the four bombers as they travelled to London from Luton had noticed another man of Asian appearance nearby the group, leading to speculation that a fifth terrorist had been present.

But The Scotsman understands that man has been identified, investigated, and found to have had no association with the four bombers.

Likewise, a man suspected of being an al-Qaeda operative who entered Britain weeks before the attacks and left again the previous day has also been eliminated from the inquiry.

The idea of a mastermind who came to oversee the attacks was a "red herring," according to an official familiar with the inquiry.

Instead, intelligence analysts are examining the theory that one of the bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, may have been more than a "foot soldier" in the attacks.

Khan, 30, was older than the other bombers - who were 18, 19 and 22 - and has been described as a father figure to younger men in Leeds.

Linked to a suspect in an earlier terrorist plot, Khan could emerge as the decisive figure in the London attacks.

More than a week of painstaking forensic reconstruction of the blast sites has failed to yield any evidence of timing devices being attached to the four bombs that killed 56 people.

The finding has left detectives all but certain that the men were suicide bombers and fully intended to take their own lives in the course of murdering as many members of the public as possible.

There had been suggestions that the bombers could have been tricked into carrying the backpack bombs without realising they would explode.

Among the evidence put forward for this theory is the fact that when they travelled to London they bought return tickets and made sure their rented car was properly parked and ticketed.

But in the apparent absence of any sort of automatic detonators, the "working assumption" among detectives and intelligence officials is that the four men knew they were on a suicide mission.

"What no-one can explain is how three bombs could go off within 50 seconds of each other unless the people carrying them triggered them intentionally," said a source close to the investigation.