British police have launched a massive hunt for a terrorist cell thought to be behind a co-ordinated bombing attempt on London after confirming tonight that a second explosive device containing a "considerable amount" of explosive material and nails was found in the city.
Peter Clarke
The
first
car bomb, packed with petrol, gas and nails and left in London's busy theatre district, sparked a huge security alert in the city almost two years since 52 commuters were killed in a series of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on London's transport network.
The bomb was found in a green Mercedes parked outside a night club shortly after 1 am, when hundreds of people were packed in the busy night-life district a half-a-mile from the prime minister's Downing Street residence.
Police said it was capable of causing severe casualties and was to have been detonated remotely, most likely by a mobile phone.
Police have called for vigilance after a second device was found in a vehicle in a car park off Park Lane in the centre of the city.
The second car was in the vehicle pound used by the local council to store those towed away for illegal parking. Police have refused to comment on reports that it had been towed there by parking officials who were unaware of its deadly contents.
The Met's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, said the second car bomb was similar to the first found outside Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket.
It too was a Mercedes and contained a "considerable amount" of explosive material and nails, he said.
The second car was found in nearby Cockspur Street, a few hundred yards from the first.
Intelligence sources said they could not rule out an al-Qaeda link to the car bomb, and said the danger of international Islamist terrorism was the main reason Britain's threat level is placed at "severe", the second highest rating.
"We're following up lots of leads and hopefully making some progress, but we're still keeping quite an open mind," a security source said.
"The balance of probability does lie pretty strongly with international terrorism," the official said, referring to al Qaeda-inspired radical Islamism.
Brown said the incident showed the need for vigilance.
"The first duty of a government is the security of the people and as the police and security services have said on so many occasions, we face a serious and continued security threat to our country," he told reporters.
Security around parliament was stepped up, with police body-searching the drivers of cars entering the compound. Across town security was tightened at the Wimbledon tennis championship.
Authorities said while they did not know who left the bomb that they had begun a counter-terrorism investigation.
"It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been significant injury or loss of life," said Peter Clarke, the head of London's anti-terrorist police.
He said there were similarities between today's incident and an earlier plot, uncovered in 2004, in which an al-Qaeda militant planned to detonate gas-fuelled bombs inside limousines in London.
It might also have echoes of another recent plot to attack targets including a high-profile nightclub, Clarke said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, facing a major challenge two days after succeeding Tony Blair, convened Britain's top security committee, Cobra.
"We are currently facing the most serious and sustained threat to our security from international terrorism," Jacqui Smith, Brown's new interior minister, said after the meeting.
A large area of central London around the scene remained sealed off hours after the bomb was found.
Television pictures showed a gas canister after it had been removed from the car. It was green and labelled "PATIO GAS", which is readily available at hardware stores in Britain.
Explosives officers also found "significant quantities" of petrol and a large number of nails in the car, Clarke said.
Britain has experienced an increase in terrorism-related threats since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and since it joined forces with US troops to invade Iraq in 2003, an event that provoked widespread domestic criticism.
Two more central London streets - Park Lane and Fleet Street - were sealed off as police investigated other suspicious vehicles.