Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/world/europe/29cnd-london.html
June 29, 2007
Explosive Device Found in London, Police Say
By ALAN COWELL [UK] [London] [7-29-07] [hydra?] [why would jihadis attempt to attack the theatre district in London?] [dens of iniquities] [too early to tell but doesn’t appear to pass smell test] [watch] [*************]
LONDON, June 29 — British police said they discovered an explosive device in a car laden with gasoline, nails, and gas canisters in the West End theater and entertainment district of central London early today and began a terrorism [*******]investigation.
The police said the car, a silver-green Mercedes, had been abandoned outside a nightclub.
Peter Clarke, Britain’s most senior counterterrorism police officer, [****]said that if the explosives had detonated “there could have been significant injury or loss of life” because the car was parked in a busy part of London where “many, many people were winding up a night out in clubs and elsewhere.”
He said there had been no prior intelligence information indicating that the attack was coming. And, he said “we are keeping an entirely open mind” about the likely identity of suspects. [does not appear to have telltale signs of alqaeda and/or affiliates] [viz., simultaneity with other explosions; methodical planning; followup injuries, so in] [********]
The car had now been made safe, the police said, and parts of central London were still cordoned off after the incident, near the landmark Piccadilly Circus area.
The police were alerted after an ambulance crew, called to the nightclub because someone had fallen ill there, noticed what they thought was smoke inside the car, [****]Mr. Clarke said.
Britain’s newly-installed prime minister, Gordon Brown, in power for only two days, urged citizens to be vigilant, particularly “over the next few days”. He also ordered a meeting of so-called Cobra group [******]of high-level officials — the Cobra name means Cabinet Office Briefing Room A — to assess the severity of the incident.
“As the police and security services have said on so many occasions, we face a serious and continuous threat to our country,” Mr. Brown said. “But this incident does recall the need for us to be vigilant at all times and the public to be alert at any potential incidents.”
“I will stress to the Cabinet that the vigilance must be maintained over the next few days,” he said.
News of the incident broke this morning over Britain’s breakfast tables when a police spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said explosives experts had examined the car and discovered a “potentially viable explosive device.” [again, doesn’t sound like other jihadis plots] [**************]
British news organizations quoted witnesses as saying police officers had been seen removing what appeared to be propane gas cylinders and a large number of nails from it. [**************]
Sky News quoted an eyewitness as saying the car had been driven erratically before it collided with garbage bins and the driver ran off. [*****]Mr. Clarke, the counterterrorism chief, indicated at a news conference however that he could not confirm this version of events. He said the investigation was continuing and that police were examining CCTV footage from cameras around the area. [perhaps wannabe-Islamists?] [youth who are feeling estranged but have not been recruited nor exposed to the indoctrination and training] [?] [****]
The car was abandoned close to a night-spot called Tiger Tiger, [******]and police said a detonation device in the car was defused manually. The car was later loaded onto a truck and taken away for forensic scrutiny by the police.
Police explosives experts called to the scene “found significant quantities of petrol together with a number of gas cylinders,” Mr. Clarke said.
The apparent use of gas cylinders recalled a terror plot allegedly thwarted in 2004 when Dhiren Barot, a British Muslim, was said to have been planning to use limousines packed with gas cylinders to blow up buildings. [******]The incident also recalled another conspiracy in which terrorists were said to have planned to attack a night-club.
The discovery today was made one day after Mr. Brown formed his first government and it comes close to the second anniversary of the July 7 bombings of 2005 when four suicide bombers killed 52 people on the London Underground, the London subway system.
The incident therefore represented a first challenge to Mr. Brown in the handling of apparent terrorism cases after a decade in government overseeing the nation’s finances as Chancellor of the Exchequer. [******]He took over from the former prime minister, Tony Blair, two days ago.
Mr. Clarke, the counterterrorism officer, declined to be drawn on whether the incident was linked to either the formation of Mr. Brown’s new government or the July 7 anniversary. [***********]
“Police were called to reports of a suspicious vehicle parked in the Haymarket, shortly before 2 a.m. this morning,” a police statement said. Haymarket is part of the area of bars, shops and theaters that draws in tens of thousands of visitors and revelers.
“As a precautionary measure the immediate area was cordoned off while the vehicle was examined by explosives officers,” the police statement said.
“They discovered what appeared to be a potentially viable explosive device. This was made safe. The Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command has launched an investigation.”
The counterterrorism command, [*******]headed by Mr. Clarke, is the police unit that has dealt with several major investigations into alleged jihadist conspiracies that have proliferated in this country since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. [*****]
In those investigations, suspected terrorists have been accused by the police of planning to use a variety of weapons including the poison ricin, fertilizer bombs, and liquid explosives to attack an array of targets like a shopping mall, a nightclub and trans-Atlantic airplanes.
Jack Straw, who was appointed justice minister in Mr. Brown’s new government, said government members had been told about the incident several hours before the police statement, which was made public as the morning rush hour got under way.
There was no immediate change in the level of threat perceived by the British authorities. According to the Web site of MI5, the British domestic security service, the current level stands at severe, meaning an attack is “highly likely”, [*********]unchanged since August 2006.
Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, a former head of MI5, said last year that the British authorities were monitoring 1,600 people in 200 suspected terror cells. [***********]
Mike Nizza and Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company