Yup, Skydancer is quite correct, looks like yet another martyrdom operation according to the AP article below.
Then again that's part of the objective for the Jihadists, as dying while fighting the infidels is the only way the Quran mentions that one may be absolutely sure of entering heaven.
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Police Raid Homes, Make Arrest in London Bombings Case
(AP)
The bomber responsible for last week's explosion on a London double-decker bus was believed to be among the 13 people killed on board, a discovery that led to raids Tuesday in Leeds, a northern city with a strong Muslim community, news reports said.
In a key development in the investigation into the terror attacks that killed at least 52 people, British soldiers blasted their way into a modest Leeds row house to search for explosives and computers. Streets were cordoned off and about 500 people were evacuated. Hours earlier, police searched five residences elsewhere in the city.
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Sky News reported that in addition to the bomber on the bus, attackers carried explosives onto three subway trains, and that all four were killed. Police declined to comment on the report and have said in the past there was no evidence of suicide bombings.
The military carried out the controlled explosion at the row house at 11:30 a.m. so detectives could enter the home in the Burley neighborhood, police said. Ministry of Defense spokesman Charles Morton said an army bomb squad had participated.
A press conference revealed there has been one arrest.
Police also shut down a rail station in Luton, 30 miles north of London, and carried out a controlled explosion on a car they suspect is linked to the terrorist attacks. Metropolitan Police officers from London examining the car carried out the controlled explosion, Bedfordshire police said.
Leeds, about 185 miles north of London, is about 15 percent Muslim, and many come from a tight-knit Pakistani community, mostly from Murpir, south of Islamabad. Other pockets of the community are mostly Arab, coming from a variety of countries including Syria and Saudi Arabia. Many signs in public buildings are in both English and Arabic.
Terrorism experts have suggested for days that the bus bomber Thursday may have died in the blast he set off, and some bus passengers reported seeing an agitated man rummaging in a rucksack.
Police believe the three Underground trains were targeted by attackers who placed explosives with timers on board and then got off. Those bombs detonated within a minute of each other, but the No. 30 bus did not explode until nearly an hour later, leading many to suggest it might not have been the intended target.
No one was in the house in Leeds at the time of the raid, police Inspector Miles Himsworth. Detectives were scouring it for explosives and other items, possibly including computers, he said.
"It's a very, very complicated investigation," he said. "It will be a very slow and very meticulous search in order that any evidence that is there can be gathered carefully."
Cordons kept bystanders about 100 yards away from the site and police helped make arrangements for prayers scheduled at a nearby mosque to be moved to other mosques nearby, Himsworth said.
Just a few miles away, police had earlier raided five homes. Britain's Press Association news agency reported another house was being searched in the town of Dewsbury, just south of Leeds, but police refused to comment on whether that was linked to the bombing investigation.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair declined to give details about the raids, which began about 6:30 a.m.
"There have been a series of searches carried out in Yorkshire. Those searches are still going on. There's very little else I can say at the moment, but this activity is directly connected to the outrages on Thursday," he told BBC radio.
Metropolitan Police described the raids as part of an "intelligence-led operation."
Prime Minister Tony Blair promised authorities would hunt relentlessly for the bombers. Police said their painstaking investigation was moving ahead, and warned that the death toll, which went from 49 to 52 on Monday, would rise. Some 700 were injured in the attacks; 56 of those remained hospitalized.
Blair went to City Hall on Tuesday and signed a book of condolence for the victims, his office said.
"With deep condolences for all those who lost their lives and for their families who mourn and with heartfelt admiration for London, the greatest capital city in the world," Blair wrote.
The families of those missing since the bombings endured an agonizing wait for word of the fate of their loved ones.
"I need to know, I want to protect him," said Marie Fatayi-Williams, who arrived from Nigeria to find out what happened to her immigrant son, Anthony, 26. "How many tears shall we cry? How many mothers' hearts must be maimed? My heart is maimed at this moment."
The family of Michael Matsu****a, a New Yorker who moved abroad in the spring of 2001, said it was likely he was dead. The 37-year-old left home Thursday to go to work and never returned.
"At this time, we've been told that there is virtually no possibility that he is alive," said David Golovner, a family spokesman. "We realize the police wouldn't have told us that unless they were certain. We have given up, basically, any sort of extravagant theories about how he might still be alive."
The names of two more victims were released Tuesday. The families of 30-year-old financial adviser Jamie Gordon and Philip Stuart Russell _ whose 29th birthday would have been Monday _ said the two men were on the No. 30 bus that exploded near Tavistock Square.
So far, the names of four of the dead have been released.
Forensics experts have said it could take days or weeks to identify the bodies, many of which were blown apart and would have to be identified through dental records or DNA analysis.
Ian Blair said forensic experts were scouring the tunnel where a bomb exploded aboard a Piccadilly line train, the deadliest of the four blasts. Police said they are also scrutinizing 2,500 closed-circuit TV video taken from cameras around the blast sites.
Authorities were analyzing 2,000 phone calls to a hot line and 115,000 calls to police.
"This is the biggest crime scene in England's history," Blair said. "They still have to get underneath the carriages, and it is possible they will find more" bodies.
Help came from abroad, too, as intelligence officials and detectives from some two dozen countries - including Spanish investigators who worked on the Madrid bombings - met over the weekend to discuss leads.
Public transit officials said the number of passengers using London's vast bus and subway network, which handles 3 million people on a typical day, was back to normal Monday.
Sales of bicycles have climbed since the bombings as workers look for alternatives to public transport, the capital's biggest cycle retailer said.
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- SEAGOON
