Police in massive manhunt after defusing two car bombs in London
Sunday, 1 July 2007
LONDON, June 30 (AFP): British police hunted Saturday for the people behind failed attempts to carry out two car bombings in London's nightclub district in what experts called Iraq-style attacks.
Security officials and ministers in the new government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown meanwhile prepared to hold a second meeting at 10:00 am (0900 GMT) to deal with the emergency that arose early Friday.
The finds raised the spectre of possible Al-Qaeda-inspired attacks returning to the British capital, two days after Brown succeeded Tony Blair and a week before the second anniversary of the city's July 7, 2005 suicide bombings.
"The investigation is moving ahead," Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism unit, told reporters late Friday after confirming that police found a second explosives-rigged car linked to the first.
He said police defused two Mercedes cars packed with fuel, gas canisters and nails after they had been parked overnight Thursday in parts of London's entertainment district near Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square.
He added that both had been "potentially viable" in what he called a "troubling" development.
Speaking after the first bomb was found, Clarke said: "Even at this stage it is obvious that if this device had detonated, there could have been significant injury or loss of life."
Police sources quoted by The Telegraph newspaper said that the first bomb, in a car parked outside a crowded nightclub with a large window overlooking the street, could have claimed more than 100 lives.
But revellers and businesses were defiant. Bars, clubs and restaurants in the area were open Friday night, even if they were more vigilant, their representative Philip Matthews said.
Clarke said an ambulance crew treating a person at the Tiger Tiger night club in Haymarket called in police explosives experts after noticing a metallic green Mercedes car giving off smoke just before 2:00 am (0100 GMT).
The second car had been illegally parked on Cockspur Street, which runs between Haymarket and Trafalgar Square, given a ticket around 2:30 am (0130 GMT) and towed an hour later to a pound in Park Lane near Hyde Park, he said.
Security officials and ministers in the new government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown meanwhile prepared to hold a second meeting at 10:00 am (0900 GMT) to deal with the emergency that arose early Friday.
The finds raised the spectre of possible Al-Qaeda-inspired attacks returning to the British capital, two days after Brown succeeded Tony Blair and a week before the second anniversary of the city's July 7, 2005 suicide bombings.
"The investigation is moving ahead," Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism unit, told reporters late Friday after confirming that police found a second explosives-rigged car linked to the first.
He said police defused two Mercedes cars packed with fuel, gas canisters and nails after they had been parked overnight Thursday in parts of London's entertainment district near Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square.
He added that both had been "potentially viable" in what he called a "troubling" development.
Speaking after the first bomb was found, Clarke said: "Even at this stage it is obvious that if this device had detonated, there could have been significant injury or loss of life."
Police sources quoted by The Telegraph newspaper said that the first bomb, in a car parked outside a crowded nightclub with a large window overlooking the street, could have claimed more than 100 lives.
But revellers and businesses were defiant. Bars, clubs and restaurants in the area were open Friday night, even if they were more vigilant, their representative Philip Matthews said.
Clarke said an ambulance crew treating a person at the Tiger Tiger night club in Haymarket called in police explosives experts after noticing a metallic green Mercedes car giving off smoke just before 2:00 am (0100 GMT).
The second car had been illegally parked on Cockspur Street, which runs between Haymarket and Trafalgar Square, given a ticket around 2:30 am (0130 GMT) and towed an hour later to a pound in Park Lane near Hyde Park, he said.