from ABC Online;Police investigating last week's bomb attacks in...

from ABC Online;

Police investigating last week's bomb attacks in London say they are deeply concerned about the 'cleanskin' nature of the four suspects they believe carried out the attacks.

A mounting trail of evidence suggests four British nationals of Pakistani descent were responsible for the bombings, which killed more than 50 people.

All four were captured on closed circuit television at King's Cross station on the morning of the attacks wearing rucksacks.

The four have been described as 'cleanskins', meaning they were not known to British security services.

Security agencies say that is worrying because someone who has not committed a crime, has no criminal record and has not necessarily attended a radical mosque would not be on the security radar.

The police and security services say other 'cleanskins' could be preparing another attack.

Searches

Police are trying to establish whether the four blew themselves up in the London explosions, which would make them Britain's first suicide attacks.

Police say it is is "very likely" that one suspect died in one of the blasts, at Aldgate underground station.

Authorities have searched six homes around the northern city of Leeds, arrested one man and found what appear to be bomb-making ingredients.

Police have also seized a vehicle containing substances thought to be explosives in the town of Luton, north of London.

Media reports suggest the four suspects were aged between 19 and 30.

They are said to be of ethnic Pakistani origin and three of them came from West Yorkshire in northern England.

Shocked

Neighbours in Leeds were shocked that their young might have been responsible for the blasts.

"He was a sweet guy who gets on with everyone," The Times newspaper quoted Mohamed Ansaar Riaz, 19, as saying of one of the four suspects, a 22-year-old sports science graduate who was said to adore football and cricket.

"He had a fantastic sense of humour and could make you laugh ... The idea of him going down to London to explode a bomb is unbelievable; it is not in his nature to do something like that."

The suspect, who was said to help out in his father's fast-food shop in Leeds, was described as "sound as a pound" by Azi Mohammed in the Guardian.

"I only played cricket in the park with him around 10 days ago. He is not interested in politics."

Another neighbour, who declined to be named, told ITN News that the "always smiling" sports graduate had spent two months in Afghanistan last year and four months in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

'Really nice guy'

Another suspect, a 19-year-old also from Leeds, was said to have turned to religion after being a "bit wild".

A third suspect was said to be a 30-year-old married father of one and according to an unnamed member of his wife's family they had originally disapproved of him because he was not as traditional a Muslim as they would have wished.

"He does not believe in having a beard or wearing a hat," the in-law was quoted in the Daily Mail as saying.

"But he has always seemed a really nice guy and has never been in any trouble that I know of. He has been to Pakistan a few times but not for long periods."

Police were alerted to the existence of one of the four when his distressed family called a casualty hotline on the day of the bombings.

Their son had been travelling to London "with his mates" and had not returned, the Guardian reported.

Police said the four men travelled to London together and newspaper reports said they were carrying military-style rucksacks containing high-explosive bombs.

-BBC/Reuters

Dave R.