Hunt continues for London bombers

Police forensic experts hunt for clues in the wreckage of the bomb blast

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Police are continuing the search for a pockmarked man believed to have planted a car bomb in west London.

They believe he is a member of the dissident Irish republican group, the Real IRA, believed to be behind Friday's bombing and several other blasts in London and in Northern Ireland.

Officers fear the severity of the attack, which injured seven, could be a sign the so-called Real IRA are stepping up their campaign of violence.

London's Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner David Veness said: "This particular attack illustrates that in order to drive home its agenda, they are willing to risk the lives of completely and utterly innocent people.

"It's a murderous agenda and a worrying agenda."

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Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Fry, head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, said: "From the damage caused there, we are fortunate indeed that we are not dealing with mass murder.

"This was a calculated, evil act by people who were seeking to maim and kill. We are extremely fortunate that people were not killed here."

Detectives are examining blue plastic from a barrel-like container said to be similar to that used to transport the BBC television centre bomb in March and other bombs in Northern Ireland.

Seven people were taken to hospital for treatment. A spokeswoman for Ealing Hospital said on Saturday the two victims of the blast who were still in hospital would not be discharged until the beginning of next week.

Andrea Carragher, 23, is being treated for back injuries and damage caused to her back and thighs by flying glass.

And an unidentified 28-year-old man has undergone surgery to clean and set a broken and dislocated shoulder, the spokeswoman said.

Fry has appealed for assistance in tracing the man who bought the grey Saab 9000 vehicle used in the blast two weeks earlier.

The suspect was described as a clean-shaven white man, 5 foot 10 to 11 inches tall, of a trim build and in his mid-30s with blond straight hair. He spoke with a Northern Ireland accent and has a pitted face.

Investigations into a series of other recent attacks in the British capital blamed on the Real IRA have produced no arrests.

The Provisional IRA is observing a cease-fire as part of a peace process after 30 years of strife between the republican and nationalist communities of Northern Ireland.

The scene remains cordoned off

But splinter groups such as the Real IRA oppose the 1998 Good Friday peace deal.

Politicians on both sides of the Irish Sea have denounced the attack, including the republican party Sinn Fein.

The blast came a day after Britain published new proposals designed to spur Irish Republican Army disarmament, a long-unfulfilled goal of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord.

The Sinn Fein party is set to meet on Saturday with the Northern Ireland Secretary, John Reid, to discuss the proposals further.

The Real IRA's most notorious act was the Omagh bombing in 1998 in which 29 civilians were killed, the single worst atrocity in Northern Ireland's three decades of conflict.

The group split from the Provisional IRA to oppose its strategy of backing the participation of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland's peace process.