http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6252276.stm



A car bomb planted in central London would have caused "carnage" if it had exploded, police sources have said.
A controlled explosion was carried out on the car, packed with 60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders and nails, in the early hours in Haymarket.

Police were alerted by an ambulance crew who saw smoke coming from the silver Mercedes, parked near the Tiger Tiger nightclub.

"International elements" are believed to be involved, the BBC has been told.

Police sources say it is quite possible the device failed to ignite - and might have been minutes away from exploding.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command, said: "It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been serious injury or loss of life."

The ambulance had been called to the nightclub to treat a sick man, when they saw smoke, now believed to be vapour, inside the car.

Bomb experts manually disabled the "potentially viable explosive device".


DAC Clarke said it was too early to say who was responsible but the incident "resonated" with previous terrorist plots.

He was asked at a press conference if this attempt had any links to a plot foiled by police three years ago which involved plans to create car bombs using gas canisters. But he refused to draw any firm links.

"The threat from terrorism is real. It is here, enduring. Life must go on but we must all stay alert," he said.

Mr Clarke also specifically mentioned nightclubs as a potential target.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain faces "a serious and continuous threat".

He added the public "need to be alert" at all times.

The prime minister's comments were echoed by the new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith who has chaired a meeting of the government's emergency unit Cobra.

The BBC's Andy Tighe said the timing was significant coming a day after Mr Brown became prime minister, and with the second anniversary of the 7 July bombings approaching.

Earlier reports said bouncers from a nearby nightclub said they saw the car being driven erratically before it crashed into a bin. They said the driver then got out and ran off. The police source said the bomb was a "big device" and posed a real and substantial threat to the area around Haymarket, which is in London's theatreland.

Dozens of forensic officers examined the scene and the car was removed for examination.

Scotland Yard said the Counter Terrorism Command would be checking the CCTV in the area.



Eyewitness accounts

Police are believed to have also carried out a search of other key areas in the capital shortly after the discovery of the car.

A spokesman said: "Police were called to reports of a suspicious vehicle parked in Haymarket, shortly before 2am this morning.

"As a precautionary measure the immediate area was cordoned off while the vehicle was examined by explosives officers.

"They discovered what appeared to be a potentially viable explosive device. This was made safe."

Police say Haymarket is likely to remain closed for some time and severe travel disruption is predicted.

Piccadilly Circus Tube station has reopened after being closed for some time.

The BBC's Daniela Relph, at the scene, said the heart of London was completely closed off and police officers were concentrating on keeping people away.

'No intelligence'

Professor Paul Wilkinson, a terrorism expert, said officers would be concerned they did not have prior intelligence.

The current terrorism threat level has been classed as severe - meaning an attack is highly likely - since 14 August 2006.

Intelligence sources said they were keeping an open mind on who was responsible for the car bomb.

The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner said the incident had "come from nowhere" and that the driver of the car was now Britain's "most wanted".

He said CCTV was the key to finding the "first clue" as to who was behind the attempted bombing.

Police have urged witnesses who were in the area on Thursday evening to contact them.

pretty scary as i've been down that street many times and my gf just flew back to the UK today and lives in london. thank god nothing bad happened, hope they can catch them. i'm sure it won't be too hard as the congestion zone cameras probably caught the car driving in london and they've found posts about it on islamic message boards.

London is the city where you don't expect a single thing to go wrong. The last thing on your mind is terrorism, you just don't see any signs of it anywhere. To hear stories like this is proof from your own experience that terrorism can happen anywhere at anytime.

eh, they are probably just overreacting like usual

i don't know how you could say they're overreacting when they've found one or two car bombs. its not like they killed an unarmed man on the tube or raided a house and claimed a bunch of dudes were terrorists and shot them this time.

its tongue in cheek. look how easily this was carried out, thank god not to the end. people always say we yanks overreact to these types of situations, but to me, there is no such thing as overreacting. it is much better to be safe than sorry

i think i just heard that they found another car with explosives.

i c, i didn't catch your sarcasm. its sad that it takes a certain type of terrorist attack to succeed before politics is responsive to it. as far as i know, little has been done to prevent these kind of attacks. so much focus has been put on airport security after 9/11 that attacks like this have been almost completely ignored. i'm shocked that after the tube bombings pretty much nothing (as far as i'm aware) has been done to prevent train attacks. i know there's a limit to how much preventive security that can be developed for train and car attacks, but there's almost no security in place at all. it only takes one nuclear car bomb to wipe out a city.

This surely would have never happened if we hadn't gone into Iraq.

Behave!! Do not derail the thread, honey ^_^

Just saying what this would inevitably boil down to anyway...

i'm at a loss for words. if the iraq war made us more safe, why are car bombs showing up in western cities??

See?

How predictable.

As if there isn't a history of terrorism in western cities prior to the war in Iraq...

Does it somehow legitimize your position to further demonstrate how the war in Iraq is completely unrelated to any attempts to control terrorism?

open your eyes. i was mocking you, not making your point.

is this post also tongue in cheek?

sad. even sadder is the hysteria that goes with it...media talking shit like 'baghdad is coming to london' just because car bombs were used...jus now seems like another attempt at glasgow airport..hope not...things are bad for us here as it is..will jus get worse.

The more press and attention you give these nutters, the greater the threat. Treat these fuckers like the spoilt childrean they are and ignore them. They'll go away soon enough. We're pretty used to explosions in London by now, we've had Ze Germans and the IRA have a go, they both got bored and went home. Now this lot will bugger off fairly soon when they realise that it takes more than car bomb to scare Londoners.

One could argue that the fact that they failed to explode a bomb means it WASN'T very easy to carry out.

i think its not whether it was easy or difficult but the fact that luckily these attacks are usually attempted by inept people. look at today for example, some 'terrorists' drove a flaming car into glasgow airport. the only problem was that they couldn't get the car through the doors. yesterday, the guy gave himself away by crashing the car bomb into trash bins and running away. if anything, these guys are just making al qaeda look like a joke.