Police find 2 car bombs in central London

"UK"

06/29/2007

By Alan Cowell
International Herald Tribune
June 29, 2007


LONDON: Less than a year after its last major terrorism scare, London was plunged into a new alert early Friday when the police found a car laden with gasoline, nails and gas canisters outside a crowded nightclub and closed down major thoroughfares.

On Friday evening, the police said they had discovered a second bomb in a car that was parked near the first one, Reuters reported. Peter Clarke, the British counterterrorism chief, said at a news conference that the second bomb, found in a car that had been towed away from a nearby street, contained nails and fuel like the first, and that the two were clearly linked.

"The vehicle was found to contain very similar materials to those that had been found in the first car," Clarke said, according to The Associated Press. "There was a considerable amount of fuel and gas canisters. As in the first vehicle, there was also a quantity of nails. This, like the first device, was potentially viable."

Speaking earlier, Clarke said that if the first car, found in the West End theater and nightclub district of London, had detonated, "there could have been significant injury or loss of life" because the area was thronged with "many, many" club-goers and others.

As the police launched a hunt for the driver of the first car, Clarke also appealed to the public to call in with any information likely to help them.

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