Police shoot man in London Underground, a day after new wave of attacks

LONDON- AFP
Police shot a man reported to be a would-be suicide bomber at a London Underground station, one day after the capital’s transport system was targeted in a bid to repeat the carnage caused by the July 7 bombings.

“We can confirm that just after 10 am today armed officers shot a male at Stockwell Underground station” in south London, police said Friday, without giving details of the man’s condition. Sky News television reported that the man was a “suspected suicide bomber” and that passengers had been evacuated from trains at the station.

Stockwell is one stop south of Oval station, one of three Underground stops that were, together with a double-decker bus, the targets of apparent would-be suicide attacks on Thursday. Chris Wells, who was a passenger evacuated from an Underground train at Stockwell, said he saw about 20 police officers, some armed, rushing into the station before a man jumped over the barriers with police giving chase.

“There were at least 20 of them (officers) and they were carrying big black guns,” he said. “The next thing I saw was this guy jump over the barriers and the police officers were chasing after him and everyone was just shouting, ‘Get out, get out’.” Witnesses quoted by BBC and Sky News said the man who was shot appeared to have been of south Asian origin.

Thursday’s failed attacks took place two weeks to the day after four suicide bombers — three of them Britons of Pakistani origin — attacked three Underground trains and a double-decker bus, killing 52 and injuring some 700. Unlike the devastation of a fortnight before, Thursday’s repeat attacks caused no casualties as the rucksack-borne bombs seemingly failed to detonate fully.

Witnesses reported hearing loud pops like guns or corks as smoke poured from the rucksacks, testimony which experts said indicated that the bombs’ detonators went off but failed to ignite the main charges. “Clearly the intention must have been to kill. You don’t do this with any other intention,” said the head of London‘s Metropolitan Police, Ian Blair.

Commuters on Friday warily returned to the Underground network, although the three stations involved in Thursday’s incidents remained closed — along with those stricken by the July 7 blasts. Officers refused to give details of their investigation, but the evidence from witnesses strongly indicated that the latest attacks, like those of July 7, were planned as suicide attacks.

One London businessman recounted coming face to face with a dazed man lying on the floor on top of his smoking rucksack, seemingly in a state of shock at still being alive. Abisha Moyo told the Daily Mail newspaper that he was on a subway train near Shepherd’s Bush station in west London, the site of the first reported near-simultaneous train blasts, when he was startled by a loud bang.

He saw a young, smartly-dressed man lying face up on top of a rucksack. “He had his eyes shut and there was a puff of smoke coming from the bag,” Moyo said, recounting how the man eventually regained his senses and fled from the train. At almost exactly the same time on Thursday, passengers on trains at two other stations, Oval to the south and Warren Street in the centre, reported similar incidents.

Ivan McCracken, on the train at Warren Street, said fellow passengers described seeing a man carrying a rucksack which exploded. “It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack. The man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong. At that point everyone rushed from the carriage.” A similar event at Oval station sparked a dramatic chase during which the young presumed bomber wriggled free from pursuers on the platform before being tackled by a florist just outside the station but escaping again.

About an hour later, the driver of a Number 26 bus driving through Shoreditch, just east of the centre, reported hearing a loud bang on the top deck of the vehicle followed by a pall of smoke. Fearing the worst — 14 people died when a Number 30 bus was blown up on July 7 — driver Mark Maybanks ventured to the top deck and found a small black rucksack, which he presumed was the bomb.

“I’ve never been so frightened as when I went up the stairs. After what happened earlier this month I didn’t know what I would find,” he was quoted as saying by the Sun newspaper. According to a series of newspaper reports, police have recovered all four rucksack bombs, giving them a potentially huge boost in tracking down the perpetrators, as well perhaps as those who helped the four British Muslim suicide bombers who died in the July 7 attacks.

Officers refused to discuss the evidence, but police commissioner Blair said he felt “very positive” that the clues could give vital pointers.