Police blasted their way into a house in Leeds today during a major operation directly linked to the London bombings, amid reports that one of the attackers is believed to have died in the bus explosion at Tavistock Square.

Police believe that one of the thirteen bodies recovered from the bus belonged to a bomber. It is understood that a decapitated head was found at the scene.

A senior police source told The Times: "There are two bodies which have to be examined in great detail because they appear to have been holding the bomb or sitting on top of it. One of those might turn out to be the bomber."

According to Israeli security experts, a decapitated head is often the sign of a suicide bomber torn apart by a belt of explosives, although there is speculation that the bomber on the bus did not intend to die. Witnesses reported seeing an "agitated, olive-skinned" man fiddling frantically with his bag in the moments before the explosion.

More than 500 people were evacuated from their homes in the suburbs of Leeds today as police carried out a series of raids in the city, which culminated in the controlled explosion at just after 1.30pm.

Armed police, assisted by the Army, blasted their way into an empty flat on Hyde Park Road, Burley, before surrounding and searching the premises. It is understood they were hunting for the factory where the bombs were made and stored.

The controlled explosion came after a six hour operation in which five other homes in Colwyn Road, Tempest Road and Shalford Street in the mainly Asian suburb of Beeston, three miles south-east of Burley, were sealed off following a series of dawn raids.

Neighbours of one of the addresses reported that a 22-year-old man who lived there with his family had been missing since Thursday.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said that the raids in Leeds, which are thought to be the first carried out in relation to the bombings, were "directly connected" to the atrocity which has claimed at least 52 lives.

No arrests have yet been confirmed but a senior source at Scotland Yard told Sky News that the raids were "significant" and arrests were likely to be made later today, possibly in London as well as Leeds.

And a 21-year-old local man, speaking at the scene near Colwyn Road, claimed that a group of his friends who are all young British-born Pakistani men in their early twenties had already been arrested today.

The man, who did not wish to give his name, said: “They’re all normal lads, very, very top lads they are. Police are just doing this for no reason. They don’t know what they are doing at the end of the day. This is a load of nonsense.”

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