LONDON (AP) — Britons gathered in churches Sunday and piled bouquets of flowers at an Underground station to mourn victims of last week's bomb attacks on London's transport system. Police sorted through hundreds of tips from the public and said they arrested three men Sunday at Heathrow airport under anti-terrorism laws.
Police disclosed the arrests during a briefing on their investigation, but cautioned against linking the detentions to the Thursday explosions on three subway trains and a double-decker bus in which at least 49 people were killed and 700 wounded. Sixty victims remained in hospitals Sunday.
"I am told that it is inappropriate and pure speculation at this stage to be drawing any direct linkages with the attacks in London, and at this stage we are not in a position to give any further information," said Brian Paddick, deputy assistant commissioner of Metropolitan Police.
Deep underground, police 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 stations, said Andy Trotter, assistant chief constable of British Transport Police. Those victims are part of the total death count of 49.
Authorities have routinely said they expected the death toll to increase, but it has not changed for the past two days.
In an interview with Fox News, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the attacks bore an "eerie familiarity" to the Madrid railway bombings that killed 191 people in March 2004.
"And so we're trying to help the British in any way we can," Rice said from Beijing.
Reports in London newspapers Sunday 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 bombings in Madrid.
London police refused to comment, but a U.S. official said that both nations were trying to locate Nasar.
"We and the British authorities are working very hard together to try and locate him and question him," Fran Townsend, President Bush's homeland security adviser, said on "Fox News Sunday."
07-10-2005, 19:43
London police nab 3 under anti-terror laws 
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