06/30/2007
British police reopened Haymarket, a main street in London to the public late on Friday evening, just hours after police thwarted a terrorist plot.
Bomb disposal experts defused a bomb in a car rigged with a mix of petrol, propane and nails in the city's bustling theatre district and later discovering a second car equipped with another bomb.
The first explosive, found in a car parked outside a nightclub and safely defused by a bomb squad, was powerful enough to have caused "significant injury or loss of life," British anti-terror police chief Peter Clarke said.
The second bomb was discovered hours later in another Mercedes parked illegally in the West End theatre district and then towed to an impound lot near Hyde Park, Clarke said.
The two vehicles were "clearly linked," police said.
Across the Atlantic in New York, news of the attempted car bombing sparked fear from some residents.
It is "very scary, very frightening," said Chrystal Carden, who spends a substantial amount of time in London.
Jeri Rowland, who lives in New York, said the reports made her realise security threats "could happen anytime, anywhere, any city."
One security analyst for the corporate world praised the public in London for sounding the alarm.
Robert Strang, CEO of Investigative Management Group praised the Tiger Tiger night club bouncers who first alerted police, and added the case has given authorities in the UK and the United States "a wake up call."
"This case was made because these bouncers at this bar call the police when they saw this erratic driving, that is what stopped it and that is what is going to save us in the future, is the people who see something, who hear something," Strang said.
The plot was thwarted just days after Prime Minister Gordon Brown took office and a week before the second anniversary of the July 7 suicide bombings that killed 52 people.
Brown has pledged to re-evaluate Britain's role in Iraq, but is likely to be painted with the same brush as his predecessor, Tony Blair, who lost crucial votes from Labour Party supporters in a backlash over his decision to enter the war.
While Brown has pledged to win back voters' support, he has also backed added anti-terrorism measures that include holding suspects for 90 days without charge.
The measures have angered many of Britain's 1.8 (m) million Muslims.
Terrorism experts said the improvised devices were similar to ones used by homegrown terror cells - much like the bombs used in the July 7 attacks.
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