British Foil Apparent Terror Attempt
People in the Haymarket section of London, which is close to Picadilly Circus, a place with restaurants, bars, etc. noticed a Mercedes that had crashed into some trash cans and the driver running away.
They called the police who discovered the car was laden with gas containers and a large number of nails.
British police thwarted an apparent terror attack in central London on Friday, discovering a parked silver Mercedes that was packed with gas containers and a large number of nails. The attack would have caused “significant injury or loss of life,” police said.
A British security official told The Associated Press that there were similarities between the device and vehicle bombs used by insurgents in Iraq.
“Forensic staff are still examining the device, but once we know more about it, we’ll know more about what type of individuals are behind this,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the security details.
The official said Britain’s domestic spy agency MI5 also would examine possible connections between Friday’s incident and at least two similar foiled plots — including a planned attack on a West End nightclub in 2004 and a thwarted attempt to use limousines packed with gas canisters to attack targets in London and New York.
Officers were called to the Haymarket area near Piccadilly Circus shortly before 2 a.m., a police statement said. Sky News cited witnesses as saying doormen from a nearby nightclub had reported that someone had crashed a Mercedes sedan into garbage bins and had run away.
It’s a good thing someone was smart enough to call the police before anything bad had happened to a lot of people.
Written by ~J~
