A car bomb was found and defused early this morning in London:
And ABC News thinks this may be related to the Jihadist graduation a few weeks ago:Police thwarted a terror attack Friday near the famed Piccadilly Circus in the heart of London, defusing a crude bomb made of gasoline, propane gas, and nails after an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a silver Mercedes outside a nightclub.
A British government official told FOX News that a number of people "were seen making their way away from the car," leading Scotland Yard to believe detonation would have been accomplished remotely.
Britain’s Sky News also quoted a police source as saying the device was to be set off remotely by cell phone. A police officer risked his life by removing the remote trigger from the vehicle before the device could be set off, the source was quoted as saying.
Of course this doesn’t appear to have been a suicide bombing since the police believe it was set to go off with a cell phone. Doesn’t mean this isn’t part of the wave sent by al-Qaeda tho since it is more then feasible that AQ sent bomb experts with the suicide teams. Maybe the person driving it was indeed a suicide bomber and chickened out. There were also initial reports saying that the driver crashed which may have caused him to abandon ship. Also, everything I have read on these suicide deals point to the fact that each bomber has a handler with a remote trigger.The discovery of a massive car bomb set to detonate in central London comes just three weeks after what was described as an al Qaeda graduation ceremony of suicide bomb teams to be dispatched to Europe and the United States. …
On the tape, the leader of the British team speaks of the mission in broken English, "Let me say something about why we are going along with my team to tell a suicide attack in Britain."
That was just 20 days ago, and the existence of the tape first reported by ABC News put British and German security experts on edge.
Either way, it’s a sign that this is indeed a war…..of course it won’t be long before the left and their cheerleading squad, the MSM, start to dismiss this bomb as too small or ineffective….blah blah blah.
Or maybe they can blame Bush for this too.
Another side story to this thing is that London is full of camera’s, one camera for every 14 people inside the city, and those camera’s may very well have taken pictures of the terrorist. Pretty cool tool to have to investigate these types of attacks.
While many are thinking that the timing of this bomb is coinciding with the July 7th bombings it appears to me to be linked to the change in leadership. July 7th is still more then a week away but Blair just now stepped down. Makes more sense that this thing was intended to send a message that new leader or not, they can’t be stopped.
CBS is reporting that a message was left on a terrorist message board which may be related:
Also, the cop first on the scene may have stopped this thing from blowing:Hours before London explosives technicians dismantled a large car bomb in the heart of the British capital’s tourist-rich theater district, a message appeared on one of the most widely used jihadist Internet forums, saying: "Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed."
CBS News found the posting, which went on for nearly 300 words, on the "al Hesbah" chat room. It was left by a person who goes by the name abu Osama al-Hazeen, who appears regularly on the forum.
Al Hesbah is frequently used by international Sunni militant groups, including al Qaeda and the Taliban, to post propaganda videos and messages in their fight against the West.
Outstanding! He has a pair of brass ones.Sky News sources say one of the first police officers on the scene of the London West End car bomb may have saved dozens of lives by defusing the explosives before the bomb squad arrived.
It is believed the quick-thinking cop recognised that the car was wired to blow up, jumped in and disconnected the trigger device, thought to be a mobile phone.
This backs up an eye-witness account of a police officer briefly entering the metallic green Mercedes before running for cover.
It does appear to have been a large device:
Police said it was a simple device similar to those used to devastating effect by car bombers in Iraq.
It was big enough to have caused major structural damage to the club, which is spread over three storeys.
One senior anti-terrorist source said: "This was a viable device which could have caused massive damage and killed hundreds if it had worked. The consequences would have been terrible. This is the scenario that we have dreaded."
Also CNN is reporting another explosive filled car has been found.
UPDATE III
Hmmm, maybe not filled with explosives but connected to the first car:
Park Lane was also closed to traffic for much of the day due to a suspect vehicle in an car pound that police believe may be connected to the attempted bombing in Haymarket.
It has emerged that the blue hybrid Mercedes was illegally parked in the West End and was towed away to the Park Lane car pound in the early hours of the morning.
Staff at the pound became suspicious and alerted police because they said "it smelled of gas".
Forensic officers and bomb disposal teams spent several hours examining the car, however Park Lane has now re-opened.
UPDATE IV
According to Brian Ross the cell phones had been called twice and failed to detonate the explosives.
Officials say the cell phones failed to initiate the explosions, even after each phone had been called twice.
So now it may have been just blind luck or incompetent bomb makers that prevented a massive death toll. Additionally, there are reports the police have pictures of the man running from the car and know who he is:
British police have a "crystal clear" picture of the man who drove the bomb-rigged silver Mercedes outside a London nightclub, and officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com he bears "a close resemblance" to a man arrested by police in connection with another bomb plot but released for lack of evidence.
Officials say the suspect had been taken into custody in connection with the case of al Qaeda operative Dhiren Barot (pictured), who was convicted of orchestrating a vehicle bomb plot involving targets in London, New York, Newark, N.J. and Washington, D.C.
Officials say a surveillance camera caught the suspect "staggering from the Mercedes" shortly after parking it outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub.
And even though the loon Larry Johnson believes the whole thing is a crock of crap and a "non-incident":
You know what you call a vehicle with 50 gallons of gas? A Cadillac Escalade. The media meltdown over this incident is simply shameful.
For starters, gasoline is not a high explosive. If we were talking 50 pounds of Semtex or the Al Qaeda standby, TATP, I would be impressed. Those are real high explosives with a detonation rate in excess of 20,000 feet per second. Gasoline can explode (just ask former owners of a Ford Pinto) but it is first and foremost an incendiary. If the initial reports are true, the clown driving the Mercedes was a rank amateur when it comes to constructing an Improvised Explosive Device aka IED. Unlike a Hollywood flick the 50 gallons of gas would not have shredded the Mercedes into lethal chunks of flying shrapenal.
The fact that "officers courageously disabled the trigger by hand" coupled with the report of the smoke in the car leads me to believe that the mad London "bomber" tried to construct a Molotov cocktail of sorts and lit a cloth fuze. Fortunately he left the windows in the car up and there was not enough oxygen to really get the fire going. Looks like the brave British police reached in and snuffed the flame.Judging from the overreaction to this non-incident I think we can safely conclude that Osama Bin Laden will remain holed up in Pakistan and let the fear mongers at CNN, MSNBC, and FOX do the dirty business of scaring the shit out of people.
The London police don’t think so:
U.S. and British law enforcement officials tell ABC News it is increasingly clear Friday’s bomb plot in London involves multliple vehicles, and is described by a senior official as a "terror plot involving lslamic extremists."
But hey, it’s all a non-incident designed by Bush to scare people….not like terrorism is something we really need to worry about.
UPDATE V
Sky News is reporting that the second car was packed with explosives similar in nature to the first one:
Police have confirmed that not one, but two massive car bombs were set to explode in the heart of London’s West End.
The first car, in Haymarket, was a metallic green Mercedes packed with petrol, gas cannisters and nails, and was defused after police were alerted by an ambulance crew called to an incident at a nearby nightclub.
The second was in a car that was illegally parked nearby and towed to the Park Lane car pound.
That device has also been made safe and has been taken away for examination.
In a news conference Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said the second car, a blue Mercedes, was parked a few hundred yards from the first in Cockspur Street which runs between Haymarket and Trafalgar Square.
It was issued with a parking ticket at around 2:30am before being towed to the Park Lane car pound where staff alerted police.
DAC Clarke said: "The vehicle was found to contain very similar materials to the first vehicle in Haymarket.
"There was a considerable amount of fuel and gas cannisters, as in the first vehicle. There was also a substantial quantity of nails.
"This device, like the first was potentially viable and was made safe by explosives officers. The vehicles are clearly linked."
But remember, it’s all a non-incident.
UPDATE VI
Some local news footage of the vehicles:
UPDATE VII
Apparently the terrorist involved in this incident today didn’t believe it would be a "non-incident":
But who are they to deem this bomb newsworthy when fools such as Larry Johnson and the DummiesU crowd believe it’s all a non-incident.Last year, al Qaeda operative Dhiren Barot was convicted by a British court for a plot to use limousines to carry similar bombs as those defused today to similar targets as the nightclubs allegedly targeted today.
In his own personal manual, Barot described how the cylinders, "if carefully orchestrated can be as powerful as exploding TNT," and "are easily available to the general public," designed for a "synchronized, concurrent (back-to-back) execution on the same day and time."
Videos posted on al Qaeda Web sites also show in full detail how to rig propane and butane cylinders as powerful bombs.
And today’s explosive device — composed of five or six propane and butane cylinders as well as 33 gallons of gasoline, all rigged to detonate with calls to two cell phones — followed Barot’s manual and the al Qaeda videos closely. Officials say the cell phones failed to initiate the explosions, even after each phone had been called twice, preventing a shrapnel-filled fireball from launching and killing people in the surrounding area.
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