Bombing inquiry biggest in UK history

Up to 400 extra police are being drafted in to help with the London bombing inquiry, which has become the biggest criminal investigation in British history.

Many of the additional officers will be helping with the analysis of thousands of hours of video from cameras on and around the  three underground trains and a double-decker bus hit by bomb attacks that killed at least 52 people last week.

The country's most senior police officer described the debris from the bombs as "the biggest crime scene in English history" and the attacks as "a pitiless example of man's inhumanity to man".

"We're recovering body parts. We are not recovering whole bodies," said Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair, warning that the death toll would rise.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the attacks as a "murderous carnage of the innocent" and said the search for the attackers was one of the most intense and vigorous the country had known.

Authorities today made the first two formal identifications of victims -- a mother of two and a university cleaner. But dozens of families were still anxiously waiting for news.

Police have so far seized 2500 videotapes and are expected to examine many more during the inquiry. British Transport Police have also pulled in most of their 2500 officers to patrol the capital's transport systems.

MI5 has returned the terrorist alert to the second-highest level - "severe specific" - having downgraded it just over a month ago.

Although there is no specific intelligence of a second attack, the security services believe the gang behind Thursday's bombings is capable of further attacks, and that there is a "high and real threat" of this happening.

As MI5 continued to hunt for the suspected al Qaeda bombers, having narrowed the search down to about 30 British and foreign suspects, the police were continuing their hunt for clues.

Senior detectives said that the analysis of images from surveillance cameras was the biggest CCTV trawl ever. Scotland Yard was renting extra video suites to view the tapes.

Detectives were hoping that among the tens of thousands of hours of footage would be pictures of the terrorists.

As well as examining cameras on the three Tube trains hit in the blasts, the police were recovering every camera in the stations that the trains travelled through, and cameras outside the entrance of every station.

The Tube bombs were on the southbound Piccadilly line and the Circle line, which means that there were 40 Underground stations where the bombers could have got on board.

As well as examining cameras on shops, banks, and other businesses, the police will also look at speed cameras. The camera on board the No 30 bus that was blown up in Tavistock Square was thought to have been faulty.

A police source said of the CCTV task: "It is a massive job that is very time-consuming; it sounds impossible - but it's not."

Between 200 and 400 extra officers from the Metropolitan Police are being deployed on the investigation. This comes on top of the 400 officers in the anti-terrorist branch and many of the 800 in the Met's special branch.

The important role that CCTV can play in a criminal investigation was highlighted in the case of David Copeland, the "nail bomber" who committed attacks in Soho, Brixton and east London.

A team of police officers had 26,000 hours of surveillance footage from the dozens of cameras in Brixton, south London. They spent 24 hours a day scrutinising the busy street scenes in an attempt to spot the bomber.

The first sighting of the bomber was made from cameras filming the doorway of the Iceland food store.

Copeland was identified by his boss and a cab driver after police released an image taken on the day he planted his first bomb in April 1999.

Meanwhile, forensic specialists and anti-terrorist officers were yesterday continuing to examine the four crime scenes for traces of the bomb and a possible suicide bomber.

This includes X-raying bodies to see if any bomb parts or timing devices, which could be vital clues, were embedded in them.

It remains unclear whether a terrorist died in the bus bomb, which went off an hour after the Tube explosions. Detectives were checking all of the victims from the bomb scene.

An anti-terrorist source said they had recovered useful pieces of evidence, but were keeping an open mind as to whether a suicide bomber had been involved.

James Hart, Commissioner of City of London Police, added: "We can't possibly assume that what happened on Thursday was the last of these events."

- THE INDEPENDENT and REUTERS