LONDON (AP) - Police in London's bustling nightclub and theater district on Friday defused a bomb that could have killed hundreds after an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a Mercedes filled with a lethal mix of gasoline, propane and nails, authorities said. The bomb near Piccadilly Circus was powerful enough to have caused "significant injury or loss of life"—possibly killing hundreds, British anti-terror police chief Peter Clarke said.
The discovery resurrected fears that followed the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings that killed 52 people on three London subways and a bus and failed attacks on the transit system just two weeks later.
"We are currently facing the most serious and sustained threat to our security from international terrorism," Britain's new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said after an emergency meeting of top officials.
But in Washington, two U.S. officials briefed on the investigation said British authorities had so far found no terrorist link in the early hours of the investigation. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said the inquiry had yielded no suspects and no definitive description of anyone leaving the vehicle.
Police were examining footage from closed-circuit TV cameras, Clarke said, hoping the surveillance network that covers much of central London will help them track down the driver of the Mercedes.
U.S. Rep. Peter King, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said British authorities saw a man fiddling with a cell phone near the Mercedes.
"They found a cell phone and it was going to be used to detonate the bomb," said King, R-N.Y.
The events unfolded when an ambulance crew—responding to a call just before 1:30 a.m. about a person who had fallen at a Haymarket nightclub—noticed smoke coming from a car parked in front of the building, Clarke said.
The crew alerted police, and a bomb squad manually disabled the device, Clarke said.
The Surge isn't working:
WASHINGTON — In the face of stiffening insurgent resistance, U.S. and Iraqi security forces now control about half of Baghdad, the American commander overseeing operations said Friday. Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil, Jr., commander of Multi-National Division Baghdad, told reporters at the Pentagon that progress in securing the capital has been steady and that while he could use more U.S. troops he believes he has enough — with the recent arrival of reinforcements — to complete his mission.
"Some wonder: Are we progressing fast enough? Are we ahead? Are we on track?" he said in a video teleconference from his headquarters in Baghdad.
"This is a fight against extremists. It's a fight to put power back into the hands of the average Iraqi citizens and to give them a vote and a voice in their own future, without intimidation or fear. I see progress, a steady progress, in every neighborhood that we've cleared and then established a full-time presence."
With the thwarted London Terrorist threat looming this is what lead yesterday on Huffington Post:
WASHINGTON — Democrats took the first steps Friday in what could be a long march to court in a tug-of-war between the White House and Congress over subpoenas and executive and legislative branch powers.
