Bomb police search houses in Leeds
LONDON (Reuters) - Police searched five homes in Leeds on Tuesday in the hunt for suspected al Qaeda bombers who killed at least 52 people in London train and bus attacks last week.
It was the first reported swoop since last Thursday's explosions and came as frustration mounted at what many grieving relatives feel is slow progress in formally identifying the victims.
Detectives called the swoop "significant" but there was no early word of any arrests.
Leeds has one of the biggest Muslim populations in Britain.
In May 2001, it was one of a series of northern towns which saw rioting between Asian and white youths blamed on ethnic, religious and racial divisions.
In Brussels on Tuesday, finance minister Gordon Brown pressed the European Union to speed up a raft of measures aimed at cutting off terrorism funding.
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities and the March, 2004 Madrid train bombings, the 25-nation bloc agreed to tighten controls on money transfers and seizing the assets of suspects. Brown wants them to move faster.
But top EU Commission official Fabio Colasanti said a proposal from Britain, Ireland, France and Sweden to log all phone and Internet usage for long periods to help combat terrorism is unrealistic.
ANGRY RELATIVES
Defence Secretary John Reid appealed to anxious relatives for more time. "It is better to get this right than to get it rushed," he said.
Five days after London's worst peacetime bomb attack, Emmanuel Wundowa angrily complained that he first found out on television that his wife Gladys had been identified as a victim.
"Nobody is telling me anything," he said. "If they have got some information that is of benefit to me, why don't they pass it on to me?"
University College London, where she worked as a cleaner, first identified her as one of the victims and then apologetically withdrew the statement.
The most public face of grief was offered by Marie Fatayi-Williams who flew in from Nigeria to find out what had happened to her son Anthony.
During an emotional speech made just yards from the wreckage of the bus blown up in Tavistock Square, she held up photos of her son and pleaded for information.
"This is Anthony, my first son, my only son. He is the love of my life," she said. "I need to know what happened."
USAF LONDON BAN
The United States was lambasted by the UK media on Tuesday for ordering its 10,000 Air Force personnel stationed in Britain to stay away from London.
Reid said his office had been in touch with the U.S. embassy. "I understand this is being urgently reviewed," he said.
As police continued checking hundreds of hours of CCTV footage from the London underground system and elsewhere, a poll in the London Times newspaper showed an overwhelming majority of Britons would support tough new measures.
Some 86 percent of those questioned backed giving police new powers to arrest people they suspect of planning attacks and 88 percent said they were in favour of tighter controls on who comes into Britain.
