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'Oh God, he's a suicide bomber'
22/07/2005 07:59 - (SA)
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| A police officer escorts his dog as forces evacuate the University College Hospital, partially seen in the background, near Warren Street Underground station. (Lefteris Pitarakis, AP) |
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London - A businessman described on Friday how he came face-to-face with one of the suspected attackers who exploded bombs in London, telling a newspaper the man seemed have been a would-be suicide attacker who was dazed when his device failed to explode properly.
Abisha Moyo, a Zimbabwe-born business analyst, told the Daily Mail newspaper that he was on a subway train near Shepherd's Bush station in west London when the incident happened on Thursday lunchtime.
Four separate small explosive devices are thought to have gone off, three exploding almost simultaneously on London Underground trains and one about an hour later on a bus.
Unlike the near-identical attacks two weeks earlier when 56 people were killed, there were no injuries, leading terrorism experts to say that perhaps only the bomb detonators went off, not the main charges.
Moyo, 28, said he was talking on his mobile phone when he was startled by a noise like a pistol shot inside the train carriage.
Screaming
"I turned around and there was a man lying on the ground with his arms outstretched in a Jesus Christ position, lying on top of a medium-sized black and green rucksack, face up," he told the paper.
"He had his eyes shut and there was a puff of smoke coming from the bag. Some girls started screaming, the emergency cable was pulled and everyone started running away from him towards the front of the train," he said.
"I wasn't sure what had happened to him and thought he might have been shot. I went up to him and said: 'Are you all right mate?' But he just ignored me and kept his eyes shut," Moyo said.
The man appeared to be aged about 19 or 20, looked to be of mixed race and was clean shaven and dressed smartly in jeans, a navy blue T-shirt and a baseball cap, Moyo said.
"The rucksack was ripped at the bottom, with some sort of muslin showing and some gooey lard coming out of it. I could see what looked like a pressurised canister or tube and there was a strong smell of vinegar," he said.
The businessman said he then moved to the next carriage, at which point the man sat up.
"He looked dazed and confused and very shaken. He sat down near his rucksack for five or six seconds and then came over to where we were, leaving his rucksack and cap behind.
"He sat down in our carriage very briefly and then walked back again. As he did, I could see some wire sticking out of his T-shirt, it looked a bit like the wire for some headphones, but I could see the exposed copper at the end.
"It was then it hit me and I thought: 'Oh my God, he's a suicide bomber.'"
The suspected bomber abandoned his rucksack and leapt from the stationary train onto the tracks, where he started walking away.
Moyo said he was going to follow him but opted not to when fellow passengers said the man might have been armed.
- AFP
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