LONDON, 29 July 2005 — The scene could not have been more striking in London’s famous landmark Leicester Square in the West End yesterday. Armed police patrolling with Heckler and Koch MP5s and Glock 17 pistols in full view and ready for use. In fact there are 3,000 armed police patrolling London covering every station in the capital, turning the city into a virtual fortress.

Across the West End in Marble Arch, which at this time of the year is very popular with visitors from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, I saw a young Middle Eastern-looking man in handcuffs as two armed police searched him. Besides him was a beige and black rucksack.

Young Asians and Muslims are complaining about increasing stop-and-search tactics of the police. They feel they have been targeted especially after 9/11. This will inevitably increase following 7/7 and 21/7.

London is not exactly in a state of siege nor a City of Fear. But it is bracing itself for the possibility of more attacks as the manhunt for the three remaining 21/7 failed suicide bombers intensified. In fact, there were another two raids yesterday on houses in Garrat Terrace opposite Tooting Broadway tube station in south London which resulted in the arrest of another nine people under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Sir Ian Blair, Metropolitan Police chief, stressed that the three 21/7 bombers are still on the run and could strike again. Other suicide cells could also be waiting. He warned that the police would come down hard on anyone sheltering the fugitives.

“Someone somewhere knows where they are. We are in a somber mood that those that are at large may strike again. It also remains possible that there are other cells who are capable and intent on striking again. These (bombers) are not amateurs, they made one mistake and we were very lucky.

“The carnage that would have occurred had those bombs gone off would have been at least the equivalent of that on July 7, and therefore it is absolutely imperative that we find those responsible.”

Police are particularly concerned that any future strikes could be against new targets other than the transport system, hence the massive presence and the high visibility of the police, both in London and in other major cities throughout the UK.

Police yesterday also released another photo of the failed Shepherd’s Bush suicide bomb suspect. The photo shows a man in a vest on a No. 220 bus in Wansdworth in south London. Police believe that he fled from the Shepherd’s Bush station after the bomb failed to explode, and ran down White City past BBC Television Center before boarding the No. 220 bus. The man wore an England football shirt which he discarded in Macfarlane Road near the BBC.

Neighbors have identified the suspect, but police have yet to release his name officially. Police yesterday raided his flat in Blair House, Stockwell Road — some 200 yards from Stockwell tube station where three of the bombers set off on their bombing mission.

Police arrested three women in the raid on suspicion of hiding offenders. The suspect bomber is a father of three, including a newborn baby, all of whom are now in care.