York Guides

London: On a dramatic day in the search for the London bombers, British police yesterday searched six Yorkshire homes, including the homes of three of four men they suspect carried out the bombings. One of the homes belongs to a South African woman.

Police said they were trying to establish whether four men had blown themselves up in the explosions in what would be the first suicide attacks in Britain.

They arrested one man during the raids, uncovered what they said was "dangerous material" and seized a vehicle found in a car park in Luton, which they believed was linked to Thursday's bombings which killed at least 52 people and injured 700.

It has been established that one of the homes raided by police yesterday belongs to a South African woman who has been living in Leeds's Dewsbury area for more than 20 years.

The woman, whose name is known to The Mercury and who originally hails from Germiston, is a well-known Leeds community worker who was married to a British national who died a few years ago.

Yusuf Abramjee, the head of news and talk programming for Primedia Broadcasting, was at the scene while police searched the South African woman's home and said the police investigation was believed to centre on the woman's son-in-law, who was not home at the time.

Police would not say whether the woman's son-in-law was one of the suspected suicide bombers.

A resident who spoke to The Mercury from the area last night said the South African woman was a "strong community worker".

"She does a lot of work with schools and old age homes in the area, organising trips for aged residents. She went to a garden party hosted by Queen Elizabeth in recognition of her community work," said the man, who did not want to be identified.

Army experts had earlier in the day set off a controlled explosion outside one of the houses to give police access.

About 500 people were evacuated from the surrounding streets of red- brick terraced houses and a large area of the rundown, racially mixed area of the city was cordoned off.

Detectives said the searches were a "significant" part of their probe into the London attacks.

Police uncovered some "dangerous material" when they carried out the search through several locations in West Yorkshire, the head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist squad, Deputy Assistant Comm Peter Clarke, said.

"Some material has been found which has caused the West Yorkshire police to take measures to ensure there is no risk to the public. The investigation of what has been found will be a detailed and lengthy exercise," said Clarke.

Clarke confirmed that a man was arrested during the raids who would be taken to London to be questioned.

"I have to tell you that this investigation is moving at great speed," he said.

Police said yesterday that they were trying to establish whether four men had blown themselves up in last week's London explosions.

"The investigation quite early led us to have concerns about the movements and activities of four men, three of whom came from the West Yorkshire area," said Clarke.

"We are trying to establish their movements in the run-up to last week's attacks and specifically to establish whether they all died in the explosions."

It was "very likely" that one suspect had died in one of the blasts, at Aldgate Underground station, Clarke said.

Police believed the four men had travelled to London from West Yorkshire on the day of the blasts and had been captured on closed-circuit television footage at King's Cross station soon before 8.30am.

Three bombs exploded within 50 seconds of each other at 8.50am on Underground trains, which had all passed through King's Cross. A fourth exploded 57 minutes later on a bus nearby.

Clarke said police had found personal documents with the names of three of the men close to the scenes of three blasts.

The raids came as frustration was mounting at what many feel is slow progress in formally identifying the victims of the bombings.

Leeds has a Muslim population of about 30 000 - one of the largest in Britain.

Dewsbury is a mixed area comprising of a number of Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi communities.

There was a sense of shock in the area after the raids, which raised fears of a Muslim backlash.