London bombers meant to kill

2005-07-21 22:13

London - London's police chief said investigators were gathering forensic evidence at the scenes of four failed bomb attempts in London on Thursday that could prove a "significant break" in solving the case.

Metropolitan police commissioner Ian Blair said it was too early to determine whether the incidents were related to the July 7 attacks that killed 52 people and the four suspected suicide bombers two weeks ago.

"There is a resonance here, isn't there, I mean these are four attacks, there were four before," Blair told reporters at a news conference.

"Whether or not this is directly connected in the sense of carried out by the same group of people - however loosely knit that is - I think that's going to take just a little bit longer."

Blair said emergency services reported they did not take anyone to a hospital, but there was one unconfirmed report of an injury.

However, he said, the outcome could have been horrific.

"Clearly the intention must have been to kill," Blair told reporters at a news conference. "You don't do this with any other intention."

Police had tightly sealed the scenes as they looked for critical clues, Blair said.

Al-Qaeda

"We do believe that this may represent - may represent - a significant breakthrough in the sense that there obviously is forensic material at these scenes that could be very helpful to us so I feel very positive about some of these developments," he said.

Blair said he was not in a position to say whether the attacks were related to al-Qaeda.

"I think it's too early to say anything like that - just too early," he said.

"But we can all see in front of us that the attacks have a similar pattern to the previous one."

The attacks of two weeks ago have been linked to Islamic extremists, and Blair appealed for people not to lash out against Muslims in general.

"No community should be smeared with responsibility for these matters," he said.

"These are criminal acts and we are in pursuit of a set of criminals in relation to it."

London Mayor Ken Livingstone appealed for broad help from city residents for tips that could help in tracking down the culprits.

"In particular I'd like to ask those who will be leading religious services over the next few days to take their congregations through these events - the immorality of these events - and do everything in their power to convince people ... to come forward," he said.

- AP