The Backpack Bomber

Shaun Connolly, Leeds

Straining under the weight of a military-style rucksack packed full of explosives, the 18-year-old’s sole aim was to kill and maim as many as possible. The photo was taken at 7.20am at Luton railway station on the morning of the London atrocities as he hurried down from Leeds to unleash bloody mayhem on the British capital with his three accomplices.

The others detonated their devices within 50 seconds of each other at 8.51am, but Hussain did not trigger his bomb until 9.47am, on the No 30 bus in Tavistock Square.

Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch chief Peter Clarke said police were releasing the picture in a bid to jog people’s memories and clear-up the mystery of what Hussain was doing in the hour after his fellow bombers blew themselves up on Tube trains.

“We know he travelled from West Yorkshire and arrived in London with three other men. In the CCTV footage, he was carrying a rucksack.

“We need to establish his movements up until 9.47am and up until the explosion occurred in Tavistock Square,” Mr Clarke said.

Hussain’s intended target is believed to have been the Tube’s Northern Line, but it was beset by delays that morning and he may have panicked and boarded the No 30 bus, crowded with 80 fellow passengers, at random.

Hussain was a teenage tearaway who became consumed by religious studies in the past two years. He told his parents he was going to London on the day of the bombings to attend a religious meeting.

When he did not return home, they reported him to police as one of the missing at 10.20pm that night.

As the investigation moved rapidly forward yesterday, the fourth suicide bomber was named as Jamaican-born Lindsey Germaine.

His home in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, is the subject of intensive police searches, and is just 20 miles from Luton where he is believed to have met up with the other three bombers on the morning of July 7.

Germaine is thought to have died along with his victims on the Piccadilly Line between King’s Cross and Russell Square. His wife and child have been taken into protective custody by police.

Police are also hunting a fifth man who they believe masterminded the attacks. It is believed he left Britain shortly before the bombings.

A sixth man, an Egyptian chemistry student who has disappeared from his house in Leeds, is also being sought.

The death toll has now risen to 53, including the four suicide bombers, and Scotland Yard said it expects that figure to rise.

Scotland Yard said the confirmed fatalities were seven from the Liverpool St/Aldgate incident, seven from the Edgware Road blast, 26 from the King’s Cross/Russell Square bombing, and 13 from the bus blast.

A spokesman said: “The confirmed number of dead is 53. Sadly, we anticipate this will rise.”

Police moved to organise a second evacuation in Leeds as another suspected bomb factory was isolated in the Beeston area of the city, close to the home of the 22-year-old Aldgate bomber Shezhad Tanweer.

Peter Clarke insisted that the investigation had so far uncovered a “vast amount” of information which would take months to pull together, but he still believed key witnesses had not yet come forward.

“Who actually committed the attacks? Who supported them? Who financed them? Who trained them? Who encouraged them?

“This will take many months of detailed investigation,” Mr Clarke said.

London came together last night in a show of defiance and solidarity in Trafalgar Square.