Bus blast an 'accident'?
2005-07-11 21:53
Beth Gardiner
London - The red double-decker bus blown up in last week's attacks in London is the one piece of the puzzle that doesn't quite fit, say some terrorism experts, who think the bomber might have detonated the explosives accidentally.
The bus explosion in Tavistock Square happened nearly an hour after three underground trains were blown up within a minute of one another.
News reports quoted an eyewitness as saying he saw an agitated man rummaging through his bag on board the doomed No 30 bus just before it exploded, killing 13 people.
Those two factors have fuelled speculation about whether something may have gone awry with the bombers' plans, leading one of the plotters to die in the explosion.
"This bombing is so curious in that it doesn't seem to fit the pattern," said Alex Standish, editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest.
"It was later than all the others. ...This would have appeared to be primarily an attack on the underground system. ... It just doesn't fit."
Fourth train
Standish said he thought the bus bomber had meant to target a fourth subway train without killing himself, but had either panicked or been unable to board because his co-conspirators were too far ahead of him and had already shut down the system by the time he was ready.
He may have been among those herded out of, or turned away from, King's Cross station - close to the site of the deadliest of the tube bombs - and got on board the doomed No 30 bus there, Standish said.
The bus blew up at 09:47 on Thursday in the famously literary Bloomsbury neighbourhood, just a few minutes' drive from the station.
Saw man fiddling in his bag
Standish said someone intending to destroy a double-decker bus would most likely position a bomb on the bottom deck to inflict maximum damage, rather than the top deck, where police say the bomb was placed.
Media reports have quoted a witness who got off the crowded bus just before it exploded as saying he saw a man in his 20s fiddling anxiously with something in his bag.
"Everybody is standing face-to-face and this guy kept dipping into this bag," said Richard Jones, 61, of Berkshire, west of London, to the BBC.
Police have refused to comment on theories about the bus explosion or on news reports that the body of a man suspected to be the bomber may have been found in the wreckage of the vehicle.
"Probably one of the lines of inquiry will be to look at why it was in a different location, different transport mode and at a different time, " said deputy chief constable Andy Trotter of the British transport police.
Police have said the three subway bombs exploded within 50 seconds of one another, at 08:50.
Police say such close co-ordination suggests the use of timers rather than suicide bombers synchronising their detonations.
That view is bolstered by the fact that police say the bombs were placed on the floor near the subway doors, police said.
Michael Oren, of the Shalem Centre think tank in Jerusalem said suicide bombers in Israel often detonated their explosions accidentally or at the wrong time, usually because they were panicking or believed they were about to be caught.
Chilling photographs
Some, though, think attacking one of London's iconic double-decker buses may have been exactly what the bombers intended.
While video footage from the underground bombs was slow to emerge, chilling photographs of the mangled bus, its roof blown off, were on the front page of nearly every British newspaper.
That visibility - and the heightened sense of fear and confusion created by targeting more than one form of transportation - may have been just what the attackers had in mind, said Magnus Ranstorp, of the centre for the study of terrorism and political violence at St Andrew's University in Scotland.
"It maximised the psychological impact," he said.
The delay may have been caused by one operative planting a bomb first on a subway, and then on the bus, he added.
- AP