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Report: Explosive Found In Home Of London Bombings Suspect

POSTED: 4:28 am PDT July 15, 2005
UPDATED: 2:16 pm PDT July 15, 2005

LONDON -- British police have reportedly found a familiar explosive in the home of a chemist now jailed in Egypt.

The Times of London reports the man's home in Leeds contained some of the same material that was in Richard Reid's shoe bomb. The Times said detectives found signs Magdy el-Nashar converted a chemical into the powerful explosive.

The Egyptian-born biochemist was taken into custody in Cairo Friday, where he told officials he has been vacationing. He is being questioned and has not been charged with a crime.

He denied any role in the attacks.

The Interior Ministry in Cairo said el-Nashar told interrogators he left all of his belongings at his apartment in Britain. The ministry said he told officials he planned to go back to continue his studies.

El-Nashar taught at a British university after taking graduate courses at North Carolina State University.

The head of the Cairo research center that sponsored el-Nashar's studies said he returned to the Egyptian capital two weeks ago. He had recently taught at Leeds University and reportedly rented one of the homes searched by police in a series of raids Tuesday.

The school said el-Nashar arrived in October 2000 to do biochemical research, sponsored by the National Research Center in Cairo. The university says he earned a doctorate on May 6.

An Egyptian official said only that el-Nashar is being interrogated by authorities there. London police would only say an arrest has been made in Cairo but do not say he is a suspect.

The FBI had gotten involved in the search for him. His neighbors there told The Times that el-Nashar had recently left the country, saying he had a visa problem.

Jamaica's government said it's investigating a Jamaican-born Briton believed to have been one of the bombers.

News reports said British authorities had been trying to find a Pakistani-Briton with possible ties to al-Qaida followers in the United States. They think he may have organized the London attacks and chosen the targets, leaving Britain the day before last week's bombings.

There are also reports the attacks were connected to an al-Qaida plot planned two years ago in Pakistan. Names on a computer seized last year matched a suspected cell of young Britons of Pakistani origin. ABC reports investigators have discovered a link between one of the London bombers and members of that suspected cell.

Pakistan has been looking into a possible al-Qaida connection with one of the London suicide bombers.

Senior intelligence officials said the Pakistani investigation is focusing on at least one trip made by Shahzad Tanweer to Pakistan in the past year.

Investigators are looking into any links between Tanweer and two al-Qaida-linked militant groups in Pakistan.

While in Pakistan, Tanweer is believed to have visited a radical religious school run by a banned Muslim militant group.

Investigators also believe he met with a Pakistani militant arrested for helping plan a 2002 grenade attack on a church near the U.S. embassy in Islamabad. The attack killed five people, including two Americans. It is not clear what the men discussed, nor whether there is any connection between that meeting and last week's bombings.

Meanwhile, relatives of one of the four suspected suicide bombers say they knew nothing of the plan and "would have done everything" to stop him.

American Confirmed Dead In London Terror Bombings

The family of an American presumed missing in the London bombings has received official confirmation of his death.

A childhood friend, speaking on behalf of the family, said the remains of 37-year-old Michael Matsushita were positively identified as being among the victims.

He said relatives are devastated by the loss.

Matsushita, from New York, had not been heard from since leaving his apartment for work on the day of the bombings.

He had recently moved to London to be with his fiancee after leaving the United States in 2001, and living in Cambodia and Vietnam.

Matsushita's parents have established a fund in his name. And the travel adventure company where Matsushita worked for 18 months until May says it will match all donations and pay administrative costs. Click here to donate to that fund.

Friends: Bomber Was Angered By Iraq War

Friends say a man identified as one of the London bombers had grown increasingly angry over the war in Iraq. And they believe the war ultimately drove him to blow himself up on a subway train last week.

Tanweer was the 22-year-old son of a Pakistani-born affluent businessman. Friends said he had turned to Islam, the religion of his birth, only a few years ago and had become withdrawn in recent months. One friend noted that Britain is "crying over 50 people, while a hundred people are dying every day in Iraq and Palestine." And he said the bombers are in heaven.

A friend of Tanweer's, Hasib Hussain, was also among the bombers. Acquaintances said Hussain had become more religious two years ago, but had never abandoned his boyhood friends for radicals.
British Muslims Alarmed At Bombers In Their Midst

In an English mosque where suspected suicide bombers once prayed, the imam told worshipers Thursday, "The devil of radicalism is at our doorstep. We must fight it, brothers."

At least two of the four young men who are believed to have killed themselves and 50 other people in London last week attended the Stratford Street mosque in Leeds.

One worshiper -- a Pakistani shopkeeper -- lamented that young Muslims "always hear these calls of martyrdom and jihad in the name of religion." But he asked, "How do you fight an enemy you can't see -- an enemy that resides in people's souls?"

At a vigil Thursday night in London's Trafalgar Square, Bishop Richard Chartres prayed that "goodness will prevail," and terrorists will realize that "all life is sacred."


British Muslim Leader Says Eradicating Extremism Will Take Time

British police have raided an Islamic bookstore and learning center even as Muslim leaders in Britain launched a vocal effort to put a lid on extremism.

A delegation of Muslim leaders is visiting the hometowns of four Muslims suspected in last week's London bombings. And the heads of Shiite and Sunni groups are working on a joint statement denouncing violence.

During a visit to Leeds, England, Friday one senior Islamic leader acknowledged there is extremism within Britain's Muslim community and said there is "no short fix." He says no religion can justify acts of criminality, but pointed out that Christians and Jews also commit crimes.

Several police officers surrounded the Iqra Learning Centre in a Leeds neighborhood Friday. The shop sells Islamic books and DVDs and offers youth activities.

With nearly 1 million Muslims living in the London area, the city's police chief has appealed to Muslims to move beyond their shock over last week's bombings and help in the fight against terrorism.

Ian Blair told a gathering at a London mosque Friday that it won't be police who will defeat terrorism. Instead, he says it will be regular people, including the Muslim community, who will have to counter the threat.

Blair also urged Muslims to change their attitudes tolerating radical clerics. He says there's nothing wrong with fundamentalism; the problem is when it slides into extremism.