Has there been another attack in London 7/21/05?

[Hardbopjazz]

Breaking news on the TV here in the US. 3 London stations evacuated. Could this just be a fire and unrelated to the attacks from 2 weeks ago, but the TV press is treating it differently?

Edited July 21, 2005 by Hardbopjazz

[Rosco]

From the BBC..

'Incidents' spark Tube evacuation

Emergency services have been called to three Tube stations after "incidents", Scotland Yard said.

Police confirmed they had been called to Warren Street, Oval and Shepherd's Bush stations.

There have been reports of smoke coming from two of the stations and all three have been evacuated.

The whole of the Northern Line has been suspended, along with the Victoria Line and the Hammersmith and City. There are no reports of any casualties.

Police also confirmed that emergency service personnel have responded to reports of an incident on a route 26 bus in Hackney Road.

A spokesman for London Underground said the nature of the incidents was unknown.

One hospital, near Warren St station, has started its emergency plan.

Sosiane Mohellavi, 35, was travelling from Oxford Circus to Walthamstow when she was evacuated from a train at Warren Street.

"I was in the carriage and we smelt smoke - it was like something was burning.

"Everyone was panicked and people were screaming. We had to pull the alarm. I am still shaking."

But a BBC reporter outside Warren St station said there was no sign of smoke outside.

[Hardbopjazz]

A true sad world we live in today.

[Rosco]

Tube cleared after minor blasts

Dummy explosions using detonators only have sparked the evacuation of three Tube stations and the closure of three lines, a BBC correspondent has said.

Police cordoned off large areas around Warren Street, Oval and Shepherd's Bush Tube stations.

Emergency services also attended an incident on a route 26 bus in Hackney Road in Bethnal Green.

Police in London say they are not treating the incidents on the underground as "a major incident yet".

The whole of the Northern Line has been suspended, along with the Victoria Line and the Hammersmith and City.

An eyewitness at Oval station said there had been a small bang, and a man had then run off when the Tube reached the station.

Police have set up cordons round the stations

Sosiane Mohellavi, 35, was travelling from Oxford Circus to Walthamstow when she was evacuated from a train at Warren Street.

"I was in the carriage and we smelt smoke - it was like something was burning. "Everyone was panicked and people were screaming. We had to pull the alarm. I am still shaking."

But a BBC reporter outside Warren Street station said there was no sign of smoke outside.

[Christiern]

Get more, up-to-date information here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

[sidewinder]

From what I gather these were more than just detonators but were rucksack and explosive jobs like the previous attack. Somehow the explosive failed to go off. Possibly the work of one bomb-maker. Same thing has happened in the past with the IRA. The good news (such as there is) is that the trail left should allow the police to track down the culprits and extract lots of info.

If do they find them and when they have finished extracting from them, maybe they could then load them into the back of an RAF C-130 Hercules and drop them out somewhere over the English Channel in sacks before their swift entry to 'paradise'.

[jazzbo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4705117.stm

BBC NEWS

London attackers 'meant to kill'

The people behind the latest attacks in London meant to kill, the head of the Metropolitan Police has said.

But Sir Ian Blair said evidence left at the scenes could be very helpful to police and added "the intention of the terrorists has failed".

Attempts were made to set off explosives at four locations, including three Tube stations and on one bus.

Sir Ian said the ambulance service had not taken anyone to hospital after the blasts, which were almost simultaneous.

Mayor Ken Livingstone praised the emergency services and said the people of London would "get through this".

'Unexploded' devices

Sir Ian said there was a "resonance" with the bomb attacks which killed 56 people two weeks ago, but that it was too early to draw any conclusions about whether they were linked.

HAVE YOUR SAY

The streets are all taped off and there are police everywhere

Lucinda, London

Police forensic experts are examining the scenes, at Tube stations in Oval, Warren Street and Shepherd's Bush, and on a bus in Shoreditch, east London.

He said important information could be recovered. "From what I understand, some of the devices remain unexploded," he said.

The Met commissioner warned against "smearing" any particular community with the blame for Thursday's attacks.

"These are criminal acts and we are in pursuit of a set of criminals," he said.

'Difficult day'

He said it had been "another difficult day" for Londoners, but that the city was already "back to business".

Ken Livingstone said: "It is not surprising that we have had another attempt to take life rapidly after the first attacks.

"Those people whose memories stretch back to the 70s, 80s and 90s will remember there were horrifying bombing campaigns in London. We got through that and we'll get through this."

Mr Livingstone backed a police appeal for information on who may have been behind the attacks.

He said religious leaders should remind their congregations of the immorality of what had happened and that people should come forward even if the was only "a remote possibility" that they could help catch those to blame.

Police cordons

Witnesses heard bangs and saw abandoned rucksacks at the sites of the incidents at Warren Street and Oval tube stations as well as the Number 26 bus, which was travelling from Waterloo towards Hackney and had just entered Hackney Road.

There was an attempt to cause an explosion at Shepherd's Bush Hammersmith and City line, police said.

Police told reporters that a man had threatened to blow himself up and then ran off.

At Warren Street and Oval a man was seen running away from the scene.

On the bus, there were no injuries and the bus suffered no structural damage.

Large areas around all four sites were cordoned off. Tests for chemical, biological and radiological weapons proved negative.

One person was injured at Warren Street.

Chemical analysis

BBC security correspondent Mark Urban said initial indications were that the devices were put together in a way very similar to those used two weeks ago.

He said there were suggestions that the rucksacks themselves, as well as the choice of three tube trains and one bus as targets, all suggested a similar method of attacks.

There was also speculation that the devices were so similar to those used two weeks ago that they may even have been part of the same batch.

There will need to be detailed chemical analysis of the substance that did not detonate, in order to prove that conclusively that it was indeed explosive, he said.

The investigation will centre on why the devices failed to detonate properly, what can be learned from them and what has become of the men seen fleeing from the scene of the different attempts, our correspondent added.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/4705117.stm

Published: 2005/07/21 18:20:00 GMT

[Dave James]

The nasty part of all this is that the bombs don't have to go off and people don't have to be killed for the terrorists to be successful. Everyone now knows that what happened two weeks ago was not a one off...that London is still very much in the crosshairs. That foments exactly the same kind of fear and trepidation that would ensue if the bombs had actually worked. Mission accomplished.

What scares me to death is the what happens when the first suicide bomb goes off in this country. I don't even want to think about that.

Up over and out.

[Phil Meloy]

From what I gather these were more than just detonators but were rucksack and explosive jobs like the previous attack. Somehow the explosive failed to go off. Possibly the work of one bomb-maker. Same thing has happened in the past with the IRA. The good news (such as there is) is that the trail left should allow the police to track down the culprits and extract lots of info.

If do they find them and when they have finished extracting from them, maybe they could then load them into the back of an RAF C-130 Hercules and drop them out somewhere over the English Channel in sacks before their swift entry to 'paradise'.

←

The early reports were a bit misleading. It has now been confirmed that the devices were actual bombs rather than simply detonators however the explosives did not go off. This may have been because the explosives in the rucksacks which as in the case of the previous attack were probably home made and a mistake was made in their preparation. All the bombers appear to have escaped in the confusion however police believe the unexploded portions of the bombs may contain fingerprints and some DNA evidence. They also have at their disposal a huge amout of CCTV footage as well as eyewitness descriptions of at least two of the bombers.

[Clunky]

more London activity

[BERIGAN]

and a mosque is surrounded as well! Don't know if it was a bomb threat, or what....

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/to..._surrounded.php

[Gary]

From BBC

Mr Whitby, told BBC News: "I was sitting on the train reading my paper.

"I heard a load of noise, people saying, 'Get out, get down'!

"I saw an Asian guy run onto the train hotly pursued by three plain-clothes police officers.

"One of them was carrying a black handgun - it looked like an automatic - they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him.

"I saw the gun being fired five times into the guy - he's dead."

Passenger Briony Coetsee said: "We were on the Tube and then we suddenly heard someone say, 'Get out, get out' and then we heard gunshots."

BBC radio has said Police have just confirmed it was a suspected suicide bomber.

[BERIGAN]

Didn't realize that "Asian" was a more encompassing description that it is in the U.S.....someone from Pakistan wouldn't be called an Asian over here....

[Claude]

BBC radio has said Police have just confirmed it was a suspected suicide bomber.

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Which doesn't say if he just looked like a bomber or if he really carried a bomb.

[Phil Meloy]

I saw Tube man shot - eyewitness

A passenger has told how he saw armed police officers shoot a man on a Tube train at Stockwell.

Mark Whitby said: "I was sitting on the train... I heard a load of noise, people saying, 'Get out, get down'.

"I saw an Asian guy. He ran on to the train, he was hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them was wielding a black handgun.

"He half tripped... they pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him," he told BBC News 24.

"As [the suspect] got onto the train I looked at his face, he looked sort of left and right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, a cornered fox.

"He looked absolutely petrified and then he sort of tripped, but they were hotly pursuing him, [they] couldn't have been any more than two or three feet behind him at this time and he half tripped and was half pushed to the floor and the policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand.

"He held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him.

Heavy coat

"He [the suspect] had a baseball cap on and quite a sort of thickish coat - it was a coat you'd wear in winter, sort of like a padded jacket.

"He might have had something concealed under there, I don't know. But it looked sort of out of place with the sort of weather we've been having, the sort of hot humid weather.

"He was largely built, he was quite a chubby sort of guy.

"I didn't see any guns or anything like that - I didn't see him carrying anything. I didn't even see a bag to be quite honest.

"I got into the ticket hall. I was approached by a policeman and London Underground staff asking me if I needed counselling.

"I was just basically saying I've just seen a man shot dead. I've seen a man shot dead. I was distraught, totally distraught. It was no less than five yards away from where I was sitting. I actually saw it with my own eyes."

'Popping sounds'

Another passenger on the train, Georgia Law, told BBC Radio 5 Live she heard the shots.

"I heard all these popping sounds, it sounded like gunshots, but quite quiet ones.

"I could hear shouting, 'get down' and people going 'run, run'. I thought there was just someone shooting randomly.

"So I lay on the floor of the carriage and then I decided to get up and have a look out.

"I could see someone lying on the floor and police all standing around.

"But it was all quite panicky so I then ran up the platform and out of the Tube."

Commuter Anthony Larkin, who was also on the train at Stockwell station, told 5 Live he saw police chasing a man.

"I saw these police officers in uniform and out of uniform shouting 'get down, get down', and I saw this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out and people were panicking and I heard two shots being fired."

'People were crying'

Jason Dines was a passenger on a Victoria line tube train which arrived at Stockwell station as the shooting was taking place.

"When we pulled into Stockwell there was just a lot of panic on the platform," he told News 24.

"Everyone who was on the platform was just running from one end of the platform down to the exit as quickly as possible.

"There was a real wave of panic on my train, people were banging on the doors saying, you know, 'come on, open the doors, let us get off, we want to get off the train'.

"Because of that panic, you couldn't actually hear what the driver's announcements were, what he was telling us to do which was a bit of a problem.

"The doors opened, we got onto the platform, then you could hear the PA address system on the platform - the drivers were basically saying get back on the train.

"There were people very, very shaken, a couple of people crying. It was quite an unsettling experience."

Edited July 22, 2005 by Phil Meloy

[bertrand]

To all our friends in London and the U.K., I wish you courage and strength to get through this difficult time. This world has gone mad.

Sincerely,

Bertrand.

[sidewinder]

Thanks for your thoughts. Indeed the World has gone mad at this time and the epicentre seems to be London. Haven't visited for weeks and will probably avoid doing so for some time to come. A real shame..

[Hardbopjazz]

Thanks for your thoughts. Indeed the World has gone mad at this time and the epicentre seems to be London. Haven't visited for weeks and will probably avoid doing so for some time to come. A real shame..

←

When NY was attacked, it took about 16 months before I was able to get my wife to go back into the city. I told her if you don't go to Manhattan, you let the terrorist win. We go back quite often now.

[sidewinder]

With todays events things are still very unstable there so I'm personally avoiding it. As soon as things stablise, I'm back. Certainly won't be 16 months, more like a few weeks hopefully.

[bertrand]

Hardbopjazz - it took me almost two years to get back to NYC after 9/11. It was a Wayne Shorter concert that brought me back

Bertrand.

[Rosco]

I'm certainly not going to be making any non-essential trips into town (I live about 20 miles outside London) for the forseeable future. Which is, of course, what these mofos want. Fear and panic. But you gotta live your life, right?