Britain eyes links to Madrid bombings

LONDON -- British and Spanish authorities said yesterday they were investigating links between the Al Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell that carried out the Madrid train bombings and known Islamic militants in London who may have patterned Thursday's attacks after those in Madrid.

The Spanish officials are encouraging their counterparts in Britain to question at least two suspects from London who are wanted in Spain in connection with the March 11, 2004, Madrid attacks. The authorities believe they may be linked to the strikes on London's transportation system that killed more than 50 people. Police said 25 people were still believed to be missing.

British authorities were careful not to rule out any avenues for the investigation, and no arrests had been made. But Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said in an interview, ''The similarities to the Madrid bombings are very strong. The scenario is very similar, and we are looking into any possible links."

Police announced yesterday that the subway explosions occurred within seconds of each other, revising their estimate from the day of the blasts that they had taken place over 26 minutes and signaling a high degree of coordination by the attackers, who later bombed a double-decker bus. The new description emerged after British authorities reviewed computer software tracking the movement of trains, footage from television cameras in and around the Underground, and images recorded by passengers on mobile phones.

''It was bang, bang, bang -- very close together," said Tim O'Toole, managing director of the Underground.

Investigators also said the bombs were made of ''high explosives" -- shorthand for something such as TNT or plastics -- not a homemade concoction of chemicals. They stepped up the painstaking process of searching for forensic evidence and retrieving bodies from the twisted wreckage that lay inside the deep, narrow tunnels and in the bombed-out bus.

Reflecting the heightened security around the country, police last night evacuated 20,000 people from downtown Birmingham, England's second-largest city, saying that they had received credible intelligence indicating a threat to the area. Officers carried out a controlled explosion to disarm a suspicious object on a Birmingham bus, and they concluded there was no explosive device.

Concerns mounted from the families of the missing. British Transport Police warned that recovery of the bodies could take ''days more," leaving anguished families and loved ones to wait for answers and hope their worst fears are not confirmed.

So far, no victims have been formally identified -- and police warn that the process of positively identifying remains using DNA samples and dental records, due to begin at some point yesterday, could take weeks to complete.

British investigators say there are numerous avenues to pursue while searching for possible links between the London bombings and the cell that orchestrated the Madrid bombings.

For a generation, Britain's capital has earned a reputation as a breeding ground for Islamic militancy. It became the home to a growing number of militant groups -- from Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Syria, and elsewhere -- clustered around mosques which preach ''holy war" against the West.

Among the key questions investigators are asking is whether the perpetrators emerged from a home-grown cell inspired by Al Qaeda; whether a single Qaeda operative might have provided training to several inspired jihadists; or whether a foreign-based cell may have moved into London and carried out the deadly attacks.

What British and Spanish investigators are sure of is that the Madrid and London attacks bear many similarities, including the placement of a series of portable bombs with timing devices set to explode almost simultaneously at the height of the morning rush hour.

Gustavo de Aristegui, one of Spain's top specialists on terrorism who is a member of parliament serving on an intelligence committee, said the modus operandi and the close timing of the London blasts added to the impression that the attacks were patterned after those in Madrid, which killed 191 people. ''I am as certain as you can be at this stage that this series of bombs in London is modeled on the Madrid bombings and that there are major players involved in carrying out both," Aristegui, a member of the opposition Popular Party, said by telephone.

Spanish counterterrorism investigators and bomb specialists have arrived in London and are assisting the investigation, British police say.

In the aftermath of the Madrid bombings, the terrorist cell linked to those attacks, a home-grown group inspired by Al Qaeda's call for ''holy war" on the West, sought to carry out further bombings. Aristegui said British investigators are in ''a race against time" to hunt down the perpetrators before they have a chance to strike again.

One of the suspects that Spanish authorities are encouraging British officials to question is Mustafa Setmariam Naser, a 47-year-old Syrian with dual Spanish nationality who is accused of orchestrating the Madrid bombings. He lived in London during the 1990s, and Spanish investigators say he could be in Iraq. The London-based Daily Telegraph quoted British security officials in today's editions as saying that Naser is ''one of many suspects" police are hunting.

A Spanish counterterrorism investigator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Spanish investigators also are urging British counterparts to seek Mohamed Guerbouzi, a 44-year-old militant Islamic ideologue. Spain has issued an arrest warrant for him in connection with the Madrid bombings.

Born in Morocco, Guerbouzi has lived in the United Kingdom since 1974 and holds a British passport. He was a member of a fringe group of Muslims who flocked to London's Finsbury Park mosque to attend the sermons of Abu Qatada, who British authorities suspect is a spiritual leader who sought to spread Al Qaeda's call to arms in Europe and who is under house arrest in London.

Guerbouzi is also believed to have met with Abu Dahda, a Syrian-born cleric who was arrested in Spain after the Madrid bombings and currently on trial on terrorism-related charges. Guerbouzi was sentenced in absentia by Morocco for his alleged role in the 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca which killed 32 bystanders.

A request for his extradition was denied by the United Kingdom because it has no extradition treaty with Morocco. He is believed to have disappeared from his apartment in the Kilburn section of London after the Madrid bombings, Aristegui said.

British police have declined to say whether or not he is currently a suspect or whether they know of his whereabouts or have questioned him in connection with the London bombings.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper in 2004, Guerbouzi denied any involvement in the Madrid or Casablanca bombings. Yesterday, Al-Jazeera said that it had briefly interviewed Guerbouzi in London and that he had denied he was in hiding. He also told the Arabic-language satellite network that his address is known to British police.

Aristegui and the Spanish counterterrorism official said there is strong evidence that Guerbouzi took part the Madrid bombings, and they believe he may have been involved in the London attacks, as well.

Aristegui, who has access to Spanish intelligence reports, said that one member of the terrorist cell that carried out the Madrid attacks telephoned Guerbouzi just minutes before the members blew themselves up inside an apartment in Madrid three weeks after the bombings, as police closed in.

''The whole way in which Al Qaeda has constituted itself in Europe has been theologically orchestrated and grounded in London, and Guerbouzi is an example of that," Aristegui said.

Also yesterday, a second claim of responsibility for the London bombings appeared on a website, this one signed Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, a group whose name invokes the alias of Mohammed Atef, a top deputy to Osama bin Laden who was killed in a US airstrike in Afghanistan in November 2001.

But terrorism specialists told the Associated Press that the group had no proven record of attacks and noted it had claimed responsibility for events in which it was unlikely to have played any role -- the 2003 blackouts in the United States, for example.

A separate group that called itself the Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe claimed responsibility for the attacks on Thursday. The existence of the organization has not been confirmed.

Kevin Cullen of the Globe staff and correspondent Sarah Liebowitz contributed to this report.