The Metropolitan Police have vowed London will be open for "business as usual" today as the international manhunt continues for those responsible for Thursday's bombings, now thought to have claimed some 70 lives.
Britain's official threat assessment has been restored to its highest level. And the alert to the possibility of a fresh terror strike spread across Britain yesterday as police defended the decision to evacuate Birmingham city centre on Saturday night in response to what they said was "a real and very credible threat".
At the same time deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick revealed that more than 1,700 people have already called the anti-terrorist hotline. Police said some of these calls had already provided "valuable" leads. They are also appealing to members of the public to hand over mobile phone images, video footage or photographs taken after Thursday's attacks. Mr Paddick said these could contain vital information to assist the police investigation.
In a statement to MPs this afternoon prime minister Tony Blair will reject calls by Conservative leader Michael Howard for an inquiry into the failure of intelligence in the run-up to last week's four attacks, while confirming an internal review into the lack of any advance warning.
However, the intelligence void was starkly revealed yesterday when former Met commissioner Sir John Stevens dismissed reports that a foreign-based Islamic terrorist cell might have been responsible for the bombings.
Sir John said the bombers were "almost certainly" British and that the attackers would not "fit the caricature of some al-Qaeda fanatic from some backward village in Algeria or Afghanistan". The former commissioner also disclosed that some 3,000 British-born or based individuals may have been trained in al-Qaeda camps, and that the authorities have foiled at least eight other planned attacks by "home-grown" terrorist groups in the past five years.
Sir John, criticised by then home secretary David Blunkett for saying a terrorist attack on London was inevitable, also expressed the view that further attacks were likely.
Three British nationals were arrested at Heathrow Airport, although the first indications were that they were not being linked to Thursday's bombings. Home secretary Charles Clarke is also thought likely to serve control orders, in effect imposing house arrest, on a number of other terror suspects currently under surveillance by the security service, MI5.
Spanish detectives involved in the hunt for the Madrid train bombings joined British investigators at the weekend, as a new Met analysis again pointed to the likelihood of an al-Qaeda connection. It was first thought Thursday's three attacks on the underground had been 25 minutes apart. Following a review of technical data and eyewitness accounts, however, the Met has confirmed they all happened within seconds of each other. The latest analysis says the first explosion happened close to Aldgate tube station, the second nearby Edgeward Road and the third on the line between King's Cross and Russell Square.
The return of London's heatwave conditions added to the burden of the emergency teams still searching for bodies in the wreckage 100 feet beneath King's Cross. As well as having a painstaking search for forensic evidence, teams were having to cope with vermin, fumes and asbestos, in addition to concerns that the tunnel could collapse, in conditions of fierce heat estimated at up to 60 degrees.
A families' centre was coping with relatives of at least 59 people who either remain seriously ill or missing.