UK police still hold suspects, seek four bombers

LONDON (Reuters) – Police are still holding two suspects in
connection with Thursday’s failed bomb attacks on London, but
are continuing to hunt the four men believed to have carried
the explosives, London’s police chief said on Sunday.

“They are still with us and will be for some time I think,
but we are still anxious for any sighting of the four
individuals or any knowledge of them or where they have been,”
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair told Sky News
television.

“There are inquiries all over London at the moment and
indeed the rest of Britain.”

Asked if the suspects were still in Britain, he said: “We
have no reason to believe they are not.”

He also said it had not yet been established that last
Thursday’s attacks were linked to similar bombings 2 weeks
before that killed 52 people in London.

“We have no proof that they are linked but clearly there is
a pattern here, isn’t there, of four attacks — three on tubes
and one on buses,” he said.

Last Thursday’s attacks killed no one, but caused panic. On
Friday an innocent man, Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de
Menezes, was shot dead in error by police who suspected he was
a suicide bomber.

Blair confirmed the police had a shoot-to-kill policy to
stop suspected suicide bombers detonating their explosives:

“This is not a Metropolitan policy, this is a national
policy and I think we are quite comfortable that the policy is
right, but of course these are fantastically difficult times
…

“There are still officers having to make those calls as we
speak,” he said. “Somebody else could be shot.”