[5] The resulting manhunt was described by the Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair as "the greatest operational challenge ever faced" by the Met.
[6] During the manhunt, police misidentified a Brazilian citizen, Jean Charles de Menezes, as one of the suspected bombers and shot him dead.
On 9 July 2007, four defendants, Muktar Saáid Ibrahim, 29, Yasin Hassan Omar, 26, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, and Hussain Osman, 28, were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.
[11] In each case, only the detonator caps fired and the bombs themselves did not go off; this may have been due to the low quality hydrogen peroxide used in the devices, which had been obtained from a large number of easily available sources.
The vehicle involved was Stagecoach London Dennis Trident 2 (17762, LX03 BUU), identical in type to the bus destroyed on 7/7, and based at the same depot; Stratford (SD).
It was reported that one of the 7 July suspects, Jamal (Germaine) Lindsay, had bought £900 worth of perfumes immediately before the bombings, possibly to disguise the acrid smell of the decomposing explosives.
Both CNN and The Times[14] reported that the armed police at University College Hospital were pursuing a suspected bomber who fled into the building following a chase on foot down Tottenham Court Road.
At 15:30, around two hours after the explosions, a major security alert occurred in Whitehall outside the Ministry of Defence during which a man was arrested by armed police.
The BBC reported (and television coverage showed) that he was wearing a small black backpack which the police had him remove before undoing his shirt.
Police shot and killed a Brazilian man, Jean Charles de Menezes, at Stockwell Underground station shortly after 10:00 on 22 July.
Officers had pursued de Menezes from a location under surveillance, believing him to be one of the men wanted for the attacks of the previous day.
The explosives used by the bombers consisted of chapatti flour powder mixed with concentrated liquid hydrogen peroxide,[27] to be detonated by a charge of TATP.
It was later confirmed that substantial improvised explosive devices capable of causing significant numbers of casualties had in fact been involved, but had failed to explode.
It was later reported that three of the four devices were of similar size and weight to those used on 7 July, with the fourth being housed in a smaller plastic box; all were said to have used the same type of explosive.
[30] Late Thursday night, a group calling itself the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade, after a nickname for one of Osama bin Laden's lieutenants who was killed in a 2001 airstrike in Afghanistan, posted a statement claiming responsibility for the attempted bombings.
Police released images of people they wished to question with regards to the attempted bombings captured from London transport CCTV cameras.
This raid was raised because the caretaker of the area found around 10 large bottles of hair dye, which can be used in explosives, and he was suspicious so called a low level police contact.
[36] In the afternoon of 22 July, house raids were conducted on Harrow Road in West London (approximately a mile from Paddington railway station).
[37] Major raids were carried out by the police on 29 July in the Notting Hill and North Kensington areas of West London.
[32] On 7 August 2005, Yasin Hassan Omar, Muktar Said Ibrahim, and Ramzi Mohammed were charged with attempting to murder passengers and being in possession of an explosive substance.
On 9 July 2007, the jury found Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yasin Hassan Omar, Ramzi Mohammed, and Hussain Osman guilty of conspiracy to murder.
[41] On 26 February 2008, a Tanzanian-born Muslim man who dubbed himself "Osama bin London" was found guilty of encouraging his followers to murder non-believers and of running violent Islamist training camps in Britain.
A fifth suspect, Atilla Ahmet, 43, who once boasted of being Al Qaeda's top figure in Europe, admitted three charges of soliciting murder at the start of the complex four-month trial at Woolwich Crown Court.
The trial was closely watched in Britain as Hamid was accused of providing the inspiration for the men who tried to carry out suicide bombings on London's transport system on 21 July 2005.
[46] Other news sources reported that the bombers watched videos of women and children killed in Iraq by British and American troops before embarking on their mission.
[47] Some quoted him as saying "Muktar showed us some DVDs with images of the war in Iraq, especially women and children killed by American and British soldiers," Hussain said, adding that they were not to talk about these videos with others.
[citation needed] Manfo Kwaku Asiedu (Arabic: مانفو كواكو أسيدو) is a Ghanaian-born man who was convicted for his role in the bombings.
Sir Ian Blair, the Met police chief, described the incident as "serious" but said that there were "fewer injuries", caused by bombs that appeared to be "much smaller than those used on 7 July".
Music was provided by a peace activism group, and several photographs of this appeared in London's local press the following day.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard condemned the attack, and stated that Australia stood by Britain and that people should "beware the minds of terrorists" during a press conference with Tony Blair.