London On Terror Alert After Police Thwart Attack
June 29, 2007 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
UPDATE: Police and security sources say they found bomb components in a second car in central London hours after deactivating a device in the city’s entertainment district.
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Police defused a ‘potentially explosive device’ in a car outside a West End nightclub early this morning near the famed Piccadilly Circus in the heart of London, defusing a bomb made of a lethal mix of gasoline, propane gas, and nails after an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a silver Mercedes outside a nightclub.
The bomb in the city’s theater district was powerful enough to have caused “significant injury or loss of life” – possibly killing hundreds, British anti-terror police chief Peter Clarke said.
Britain’s new home secretary, Jacqui Smith called an emergency meeting of top officials, calling the attempted attack “international terrorism.”
“We are currently facing the most serious and sustained threat to our security from international terrorism,” she said afterward. “This reinforces the need for the public to remain vigilant to the threat we face at all times.”
Police planned to examine footage from closed-circuit TV cameras in the area, Clarke said, hoping the surveillance network that covers much of central London will help them track down the driver of the rigged Mercedes.
Officers were called to The Haymarket, just south of Piccadilly Circus, after an ambulance crew – responding to a call just before 1:30 a.m. about an injury at a nearby nightclub – noticed smoke coming from a car parked in front of the club, Clarke said.
