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Manhunt on for London bombers
30/06/2007 08:53 - (SA)
London - British police hunted on 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 on Saturday morning to deal with the emergency that arose early on 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.
Second car
"The investigation is moving ahead," Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism unit, told reporters late on 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."
Revellers defiant
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 appealed for people to contact the police if they have any information linked to the events or if they find anything suspicious.
Government sources quoted by The Independent newspaper said the bombs were to have been set off using mobile phones attached to detonators.
Clarke has refused to speculate on who or what groups might have been involved or what may have motivated them.
Detectives were scouring footage from closed circuit television cameras in streets surrounding Haymarket, which is busy with revellers into the early hours of the morning, for images of the drivers of the two cars.
The closed circuit television cameras which blanket London proved a valuable tool for detectives investigating the July 7, 2005 attacks on the city's transport network, in which four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 other people.
- AFP
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