London Police Arrest Three as Search for Bombers Looks Abroad and at Home

LONDON (AP) -- Police arrested three men at Heathrow airport Sunday under anti-terrorist laws, but weren't saying whether it was related to a massive hunt for the bombers who killed at least 49 people on London's subways and a bus.

Police appealed to the public to e-mail any photos, videos or images from camera-equipped mobile phones they took in the vicinity of the four blasts.

A former London police chief said it was likely the bombers were British citizens, though investigators weren't so sure.

The arrests at Heathrow under anti-terrorist laws were the first reported since bombers struck three subway trains and a double-decker bus Thursday morning.

''These arrests were not made as a result of information about the explosions that happened in London,'' said Brian Paddick, deputy assistant commissioner of Metropolitan Police.

Drawing any connection to the bombings, he said, would be ''inappropriate and pure speculation.''

Deep underground, police officers continued the hot, filthy work of searching for bodies from the worst of the subway bombings. Twenty-one bodies have been recovered so far in the tunnel between Russell Square and King's Cross, and Andy Trotter, assistant chief constable of British Transport Police, said there might be more bodies under the carriages.

Other officers sought leads by examining surveillance camera footage or checking out tips _ 1,700 at latest count _ flooding in from the public.

Paddick appealed for videos, photos and cell phone images taken close to the time and the scene of the explosions that might provide clues to the terrorists' identities.

If in doubt, police told the public, ''please let us decide if the images you have are important.''

On Saturday, investigators said they had determined that all three subway bombs detonated within a minute of each other _ suggesting that timers rather than individuals set them off. Police have said that each of the four bombs contained less than 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) of high explosives.

The London attacks injured at least 700 people, and more than 60 remained in hospitals Sunday.

A former police chief said Sunday that the killers ''almost certainly'' were British.

''I'm afraid there's a sufficient number of people in this country willing to be Islamic terrorists that they don't have to be drafted in from abroad,'' said John Stevens, who headed London's Metropolitan Police for five years until retiring in January.

Paddick said police had drawn no conclusions about the nationality of the attackers.

Stevens, writing in the News of the World, said ''we have already convicted two British shoe bombers, Richard Reid and Saajid Badat, and there were the two British suicide bombers, Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif, who killed themselves in Israel.''

Hanif was identified as the suicide bomber who killed three people and injured 60 on April 30, 2004, at Mike's Place in Tel Aviv, while Sharif allegedly fled from the scene and was later found dead.

Reid tried to detonate a bomb hidden in his shoe aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22, 2001. He is now serving a life sentence.

Badat had bought a ticket for another flight, but changed his mind and took his bomb home to western England, keeping it in his bedroom.

It took police nearly two years to track down Badat, who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in February. He is now serving a 13-year prison sentence.

Another major terrorism trial ended in April with the conviction of an Algerian, Kamel Bourgass, for conspiring to poison Londoners with ricin. Bourgass, who allegedly had ties to al-Qaida, was also convicted of murdering a police officer while resisting arrest.

Seven other Algerians and a Libyan charged in that plot were either found innocent or weren't prosecuted.

Police have not released the names of any of the victims. But a Scottish couple said Sunday that they had concluded that their daughter, Helen Jones, a 28-year-old accountant, had died.

The family asked ''to be left in peace to attempt to come to terms with the consequences of this barbaric act.''

Reports in Sunday newspapers identified a possible suspect as Mustafa Setmarian Nasar _ a Syrian suspected of being al-Qaida's operations chief in Europe and the alleged mastermind of last year's Madrid railway bombings.

London police refused to comment, but a U.S. official said Sunday that both nations were trying to locate Nasar.

''He has been a longtime and well-known bad guy terrorist, and involved in terrorist circles,'' U.S. President George W. Bush's homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, said on ''Fox News Sunday.''

''The fact is we and the British authorities are working very hard together to try and locate him and question him,'' Townsend said.