Police Tuesday questioned five suspects arrested in connection with the July 21 failed attacks on the London transit system. They have released the names of two of the four suspected bombers, who are being sought, and provided details on how they fled three subway trains and a bus when their devices failed to fully detonate.

Those bombs were stored in clear plastic food containers and put into dark-coloured bags or backpacks. Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist squad, said those four bombs were similar to another found abandoned in a park on Saturday, raising fears a fifth bomber was on the loose.

Meanwhile, British politicians expressed their determination to fight terrorism, but warned that giving police the power to hold terror suspects for three months without charge could erode civil liberties.

Prime Minister Tony Blair met opposition party leaders to discuss new anti-terror legislation aimed at preventing a repeat of July 7 bombings that killed 52 people.

Opposition leaders did not think they would have to reconvene Parliament in summer instead of October 10 to discuss new terrorism legislation.

Under discussion are proposals to outlaw "indirect incitement" of terrorism, including praising those who carry out attacks, to counter extremist Islamist clerics accused of radicalizing disaffected Muslim youth in Britain.

The law also would make it illegal to receive training in terrorist techniques in Britain or abroad, or to plan an attack and activities such as acquiring bomb-making instructions on the Internet.

"There's a great desire at a time when the country faces such great danger to work together. We are all in this together and we all believe it is very important to show that the country is united in its response to the danger we face," Conservative leader Michael Howard said. "We hope that it will be possible to reach agreement on further measures that will enable us to deal with this threat more effectively."

The opposition leaders, however, had reservations about a police proposal to extend the time that a terror suspect can be held without charge from two weeks to three months.

"We see very considerable difficulties in that. That is a long time to hold someone without charge, and possibly just release them after that," Howard said.

Blair urged the public to help catch the London bombers, saying "there will be people who know something."

Suspects identified

Clarke identified two of the suspects as Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, and Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, also known as Muktar Mohammed Said.

The British Home Office said that Omar was an immigrant from Somalia and Said was a naturalized British citizen from Eritrea.

Clarke also released new closed-circuit images of the four suspects and gave details of their movements, saying one bolted from a subway station pursued by passengers, while another jumped through a subway window and fled down the tracks.

Armed officers on Monday raided a London apartment that Said - suspected of trying to bomb a bus in east London on Thursday - was believed to have visited recently. Forensic officers in white overalls searched the apartment in Curtis House, a concrete high-rise in the city's northern suburbs.

Metropolitan Police also said on Monday they had arrested two people on suspicion of terrorism in the area but not at the raided address. Three other suspects are already being questioned at a high-security London police station "on suspicion of the commission, instigation or preparation of acts of terrorism" in connection with the July 21 attacks.

On Sunday, police destroyed a package found in bushes in a west London park not far from the scene of the attempted bombing at Shepherd's Bush Underground railway station. Clarke said forensic examination had shown "clear similarities" between the device and the bombs found on three subway trains and a bus last Thursday.

"All five of these bombs had been put into dark-coloured bags or rucksacks. All five were made using the same type of plastic food storage container," Clarke said.

He appealed for shopkeepers who stocked the 6.25 litre clear plastic containers to contact police if they had sold five or more of the containers.

They are not indicative of any particular terrorist organization's techniques, said Brian Jackson, a specialist in terrorist technology at Washington's Rand Corporation, a think-tank that conducts national security research.

"There's certainly a lot of flexibility in the way people can make bombs, so most likely this was just something that was a convenient size for the type of bomb," he said.

Police Commissioner Ian Blair said police were mounting "an absolutely brilliant operation, and it is, of course, racing against time." But as the investigation rolled on, police faced growing criticism over the killing of an unarmed Brazilian, mistaken for a potential bomber.

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, shot dead on Friday inside a subway carriage in front of horrified passengers, said they were considering legal action against the police.

'Al-Qaida involved in both attacks'

The police commissioner has indicated he believed al-Qaida-linked terrorists were involved in both the July 7 and July 21 attacks. Asked if the attacks were connected, he said: "We have no proof that they are linked, but clearly there is a pattern here."

Police were investigating whether some of the July 21 suspects might have visited the same Welsh whitewater rafting centre as two of the July 7 suicide bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shahzad Tanweer.

The men went rafting there on June 4, according to the National Whitewater Centre. Police have refused to comment on media reports that a rafting centre brochure was found in the explosives-laden knapsack found on a bus on July 21.

Centre director Paul O'Sullivan said the two identified July 21 suspects were not registered on the same rafting trip as the July 7 suspects.

Source: China Daily