London police thwart car bomb plot

Days before the 7/7 anniversary, cops defuse a car bomb in London and launch a terrorism probe

LONDON: On her first day as the first female home secretary of Britain, Jacqui Smith was forced to deal with car bomb planted in central London in the early hours of Friday. A silver Mercedes stuffed with 60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders and nails was found outside the Tiger Tiger night club in Piccadilly Circus at 2.00 am.

The explosive officers of Scotland Yard manually disabled the device before it went off. “If the bomb had gone off there would have been carnage as this is a very crowded area of London at any time of the day or night,” said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command.

The car bomb was discovered when a London ambulance crew was called to the night club to treat a man who had been taken ill at 1 am. They noticed smoke coming out of the Mercedes parked outside the night club and called the police.

“We were suddenly told that the night club is closing and we were ushered out of the back door,” said Rajshree Patel who was having a night out at Tiger Tiger with friends. “There were around 500 people inside the night club at the time and if the bomb had gone off, there would have been a lot of fatalities,” said 34-year-old Patel.

The disabled car was removed from the site and police said they are gathering a huge amount of CCTV footage of the area. The police are refusing to say who they think are responsible but it is believed that ‘international elements’ are involved. The timing of potential car bomb is deemed as significant as it was planted on the first full day of the new Gordon Brown administration and only a week away from the second anniversary of the 7/7 bomb blasts which killed 52 people.

Today’s incident also “resonated” with previous terrorist plots like the foiled ‘gas-limo’ project of three years ago for which Indian-origin Dhiren Barot is currently serving a life term in prison. Barot and his accomplices were found guilty of plotting to fill limousines with gas cylinders and exploding them outside landmark buildings in the country.

Friday’s incident was foiled due to the vigilance of ambulance crew and the police have announced an increase in the visibility of police presence for the next few days in the run up to the second anniversary of the London bombings.

Park Lane and Haymarket — both major thoroughfare — have all been closed to traffic causing disruptions throughout the city. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the incident showed that Britain faces a “serious and continuous threat” and that the “public needs to be alert” at all times.