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London police defused a bomb located in a car loaded with explosives, gas canisters, nuts, bolts, and a large number of nails. Officials have not confirmed whether or not this is linked with Islamic terrorism but the way the car was rigged is similar to the way radical Islam rigs cars. If I had to guess I’d say that this is linked to radical Islam, but I won’t jump to conclusions, we will wait and see.

LONDON - British police defused a bomb found in a parked car in central London on Friday, and the new government called an emergency meeting of senior security chiefs to investigate what many feared could have been a planned terror attack.

A British security official told The Associated Press that the car was packed with explosives, gas canisters and nuts and bolts and would have caused “significant damage.”

He said 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.

UPDATE: Authorities are looking at a second car in an underground parking garage that they say is linked to the first car. The second car is located near London’s Park lane and may have been the terrorists get away car.

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said that Park Lane was closed at Marble Arch to Hyde Park Corner and a 200m cordon put in place.

It would also affect part of Oxford Street and people were being asked to leave the street but were not initially being evacuated from buildings in the area, said the spokeswoman.

Sources close to the investigation said that the Park Lane closure is linked to the discovery of a vehicle at an underground car park.

It is also believed to be linked to the investigation into the Haymarket car bomb.

At the moment it is not known if the vehicle at Park Lane contains a device. - BBC News

Authorities believe this is part of an international terrorist plot. The Guardian Unlimited is characterizing it as being “inspired” by al-Qaida.

Most alarming is that Scotland Yard had no intelligence indicating that this was in the works.

The security services and police have been trying to boost the intelligence they have about violent extremists. But this attempted attack was “off the radar”.

Scotland Yard’s head of counter-terrorism, Peter Clarke said: “There is no intelligence whatsoever that we were going to be attacked in this way.”

Lord John Talyor from the House of Lords appeared on Fox news and said prevention must be the course of action. He wants to remove the word terrorist and call them criminals, which is disappointing, but he does want to get tough on hate speech in mosques.

This find is a great one with respect to forensic evidence. They should be able to trace much of this back to cells with luck.

Update II: The car that was parked in front of a busy night club, wired with explosives, was stolen in early June. It appears that they have pictures of the terrorist; he was arrested a few years back for a similar charge, but was released due to lack of evidence.
The car bomb was wired to two cell phones and apparently they were both called fifteen minutes before the bar closed; thankfully the detonators malfunctioned.

The second vehicle, which was towed to Park Lane Car Park, may have also been loaded with explosives. There are reports that after the vehicle was towed, the people at the car park lot smelled gas and called authorities.

Update III: Bump to top - ABC News is reporting that surveillance cameras caught a photo of the driver of the Mercedes and he appears to to have a close assemblance to an al-Qaeda operative who is behind bars.

Al Qaeda’s mantra, “If at first you don’t succeed, try again,” appears, according to officials, to be behind today’s foiled car bomb plot in London with the same kind of bombs aimed at the same kind of targets by, officials say, apparently some of the same kind of people.

British authorities tell ABC News a “crystal clear” surveillance photo of the driver of the silver Mercedes, discovered early Friday morning, bears “a close resemblance” to one of the associates of an al Qaeda operative now behind bars.

Officials say a surveillance camera caught the suspect “staggering from the Mercedes” shortly after parking it outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Piccadilly Circus at the heart of London’s nightclub and theater district.

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.

I’m not sure what close resemblance implies but it is interesting that ABC also links up an article that claims there was no connection between the bomb plot an al-Qaeda because a password protected jihadi message board posted a statement that “London shall be bombed,”. They are dismissing the connection because the message appeared in a general section and not on the admin pages. This seems like a stretch to me but you can read their synopsis for yourself.

The statement, “London shall be bombed,” posted on a jihadi Web site last night and first reported by CBS News is unlikely an official claim of responsibility by an al Qaeda group.

While the message was found on a popular password-protected jihadii Internet forum, “al Hesba,” it was found in the general section not known to be used for a major public statement.

Messages from al Qaeda and other groups are usually posted in the “statements” section of the Web site by its administrators.

The message was posted by a frequent writer who has never previously acted as a spokesperson for any al Qaeda group or been the source of al Qaeda material.

The user who posted the note identifies himself as “Abu Osama al Hazin,” i.e. the sad Abou Osama. According to the Web site’s available information, he joined the forum in November 2005 and has 500 postings. Judging by his previous participations, it’s clear that “Abou Osama” is supportive of terrorist groups, but unlikely that he has direct connections to any.

Others: Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, American Pundit, Pirates Cove, Sticky Notes,Tel-Chai Nation, Ace of Spades HQ, Rhymes With Right, Breaking: Car bomb found in London west end | BitsBlog, Brits thwart attempted bombing in Picadilly Circus « Dave in Texas, JammieWearingFool, London and The Nutroots - But The Nail Bomber Was Right Wing : 186k Per Second, FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Terror in London Watch: Explosives-Packed Car Defused; Update: Hyde Park Being Evacuated

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