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2007-07-11 03:37:48
Sat Jun 30, 2007 4:31 AM ET
By Mark Trevelyan and Avril Ormsby
LONDON (Reuters) - British police stepped up their patrols in London on
Saturday after the discovery of two car bombs packed with petrol, gas and nails
in the capital's teeming theatre district.
Authorities launched a counter-terrorism investigation after Friday's discovery
of explosives in two parked Mercedes cars in London's West End that had echoes
of an earlier al Qaeda plot.
With high profile events scheduled in London at the weekend including a Gay
Pride march, the Wimbledon tennis championships and a concert in honor of
Princess Diana, police maintained a high alert.
"There will be more police patrols. The investigation is moving ahead,"
anti-terrorism police chief Peter Clarke said.
Tens of thousands of people were expected to attend the Gay Pride march which
will follow a route from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square on Saturday.
Wimbledon tennis would also continue following a review of security
arrangements, police superintendent Peter Dobson said.
Detectives were checking CCTV footage from the area around Haymarket and
Cockspur Street where the two cars were discovered and carrying out forensic
tests.
A combination of luck and quick thinking helped security services avert attacks
that could have killed or maimed scores.
Officers defused the first in a green Mercedes parked outside one of London's
biggest nightclubs, the cavernous Tiger Tiger, at around 1 a.m. (midnight GMT).
The club was packed with hundreds of people for "Sugar 'n Spice Ladies Night".
The police, alerted by ambulance workers who thought they saw smoke inside the
car, defused the first bomb at the scene. It contained gas tanks, fuel
canisters and nails.
Similar material was later found in a blue Mercedes that had been parked
illegally nearby and towed to a garage in Park Lane. The two cars were "clearly
linked", Clarke said.
The alerts came less than two years after Islamist suicide bombers killed 52
commuters on London transport.
"It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been
significant injury or loss of life," Clarke said.
He added there were similarities between Friday's incident and an earlier plot,
uncovered in 2004, in which an al Qaeda militant planned to detonate
gas-fuelled bombs in limousines.
The ringleader of that plot, Dhiren Barot, was convicted last year. Another
group of Islamic radicals were convicted this year in a plot in which a big
nightclub was among the targets.
"SERIOUS AND SUSTAINED THREAT"
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, facing a major challenge two days after succeeding
Tony Blair, convened Britain's top security committee, Cobra.
"We are currently facing the most serious and sustained threat to our security
from international terrorism," Jacqui Smith, Brown's new Home Secretary, said
after the meeting, which she chaired in her first day on the job.
Sky News said the first device was rigged to detonate with a mobile-phone
trigger. Police would not confirm that report.
Intelligence sources said they could not rule out an al Qaeda link. A security
source said: "The balance of probability does lie pretty strongly with
international terrorism."