UK on alert in wake of BBC blast

The bomb spread debris over a wide area

LONDON, England -- Britain is on high alert after a bomb attack in central London in which one man was injured.

A dissident Irish Republican terror group is suspected of planting a bomb that exploded outside the British Broadcasting Corporation's main office.

Prime Minister Tony Blair denounced the attack in the early hours of Sunday morning as a "cowardly act."

He said it would not deter peace efforts in Northern Ireland.

"There are those outside the peace process who are set on trying to turn the clock back to the days before the Good Friday Agreement," Blair said through a spokesman, referring to the province's 1998 peace accord.

"We will not allow them to take our focus from working with all parties to move the process on."

One London Underground worker suffered minor injuries in the attack, believed to be the work of the real IRA, said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Fry, the head of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorism Branch.

"It is quite clear that we are dealing with ruthless terrorists who are quite prepared to use ruthless tactics without any care for the consequences," said Fry.

"I fear we will see more attacks in coming days or weeks."

Later on Sunday, the area around busy Victoria Station in the heart of London was cordoned off as a "controlled explosion" was carried out on a suspicious parked vehicle.

The BBC blast, which ripped through a quiet neighborhood in west London shortly after midnight and sent an orange fireball into the sky, was preceded by two telephoned warnings that used code words known to police.

Police said the bomb was made of 10 to 20 pounds of high explosive -- they did not disclose the type -- and planted in a red taxi that was left parked outside the BBC building, facing the wrong way with its lights turned on.

The device, controlled by a timer, was detonated as police tried to disable it by remote control.

The taxi was destroyed in the blast, but it was traced to a north London dealer who said he had sold it the day before to a man with a Northern Ireland accent, according to police.

The television center's main building was evacuated before the explosion; police said there would almost certainly have been "significant injuries" otherwise. The blast, which could be heard miles away, shattered windows and cracked plaster in nearby buildings, scattering debris over a wide area.

Fry said police were looking at the possibility that the attack was staged partly in retaliation for a hard-hitting BBC documentary last year that focused on the Real IRA -- a hardline IRA splinter group which carried out the Omagh bombing in 1998 in which 29 people died.

BBC duty news editor Laurie Margolis, who saw the explosion, said he was amazed by the force of the blast.

"I have seen things going off in Beirut, Northern Ireland and Yugoslavia," he said.

"We knew from the police activity something was going to happen, but the actual force of the explosion was very substantial. It was a fireball that seemed to fill the whole road between BBC TV Centre and White City Tube station."

He added: "What is left of my car is outside the office. I haven't seen it, but I'm not too optimistic."

Fry said a dissident Irish republican group was believed to be responsible "and that is where we are commencing this investigation."

Asked whether he suspected the Real IRA, he said: "That would be my expectation."

He said the explosion would represent an escalation of the group's terror campaign on mainland Britain.

"We have been predicting, since Christmas, that the mainland, and London in particular, were to be subject to terrorist attacks. This was one of those attacks. I can only fear that we will see more."

Last month a 14-year-old boy lost a hand and was left blinded by a torch bomb at a Territorial Army centre near the site of the latest blast.

Irish dissident groups were being considered as possible suspects in that case and at the time Scotland Yard said it could not rule out the possibility of more bomb attacks.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Real IRA blamed for BBC blast
March 4, 2001
One injured in UK explosion
February 21, 2001
N.Ireland talks continue despite bomb
January 23, 2001
Three arrested in Omagh bomb investigation
October 17, 2000
Omagh remembers -- two years on
August 15, 2000

Metropolitan Police: Anti-Terrorist Branch
Northern Ireland Office

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.