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Families search for London bombing victims
In what looked like an eerie replay of Sept. 11, fliers seeking information about people missing in the London terror attacks proliferated on walls and trees around the blast sites Saturday.
Investigators said they are taking seriously a claim of responsibility posted on the Internet by a group calling itself "The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe," which they fear may be allied with Iraq's terror chief, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The name was previously little-known to terror experts, although a Web posting under that title had claimed responsibility for the last major terror attack in Europe: the bombs on commuter trains in Madrid in March 2004, which killed 191 people.
The bombs were probably made from simple, relatively easy-to-obtain plastic explosives, not the higher-grade military plastics like Semtex that would have killed far more people, said Andy Oppenheimer, a weapons expert who consults for Jane's Information Group. However, Roland Jacquard, who heads the Paris-based International Terrorism Observatory, said that bomb experts from Spain sent to London to help assess the explosive devices used in the attacks were of a different opinion. "For the moment, from what I know, it's a military-type explosive, extremely hard and powerful, difficult to maneuver," Jacquard told the AP, based on conversations with people investigating the blast. Investigators didn't immediately comment on his remarks, which were first reported by French media. British Transport Police, who oversee the Underground, said crews were still working around the wreckage of a subway train near Russell Square where at least 21 people died. Crews reached the cars and said they saw more bodies in the hot, rat-infested tunnels, but warned it could take days to retrieve them. Many of the tunnels are more than 100 feet beneath the surface. "This is an enclosed tunnel and it is very difficult conditions and it's a bit dangerous," Transport Police Deputy Chief Constable Andy Trotter told reporters. "It will take some time before everyone is removed from there." Sir Ian Blair, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said he expected the death toll to rise but doubted it would reach triple digits. Friends and relatives of the missing scoured London hospitals, bearing photographs of their loved ones. Jamie Gordon's co-workers posted photos of him on trees and walls around where the double-decker blew up. They said they hadn't heard from the 30-year-old Zimbabwean since he called his asset management firm in central London on Thursday to say he was on his way to work aboard a bus. "Please help us find our friend," the posters read in a scene reminiscent of the desperate search for victims in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States. More than 700 people were injured, including citizens of at least five countries in addition to Britain — Sierra Leone, Australia, Portugal, Poland and China. The U.S. State Department said at least four Americans were injured. One person died in the hospital, where 100 victims spent the night after the blast, Blair said. As investigators worked underground, bouquets of fresh flowers and cards scribbled with thoughts for the victims of London's worst attack since World War II piled up Friday outside the subway stations where the terrorists struck. A mound of floral tributes, many bearing cards with touching sentiments, grew outside the entrance to King's Cross station, near the site of the deadliest of Thursday's bombings. A metal fence around the Tube station was festooned with bouquets. "Yesterday we fled this great city, but today we are walking back into an even stronger, greater city," read a note near St. Pancras Church, near where a bomb shredded a double-decker bus. It was similar to the appeals, condolences and encouragement that appeared across New York City after the far deadlier Sept. 11 attacks. "The people who did this should know they have failed. They have picked the wrong city to pick on," read another note. "London will go on."
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