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Blood and carnage scar London
Deborah Haynes
Posted Thu, 07 Jul 2005
Explosions ripped through three underground trains and a bus in London Thursday, killing at least 37 eople and injuring more than 700 in a wave of terrorist attacks a day after the capital won its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games and as G8 leaders met in Scotland.
A previously unknown group calling itself the Organisation of al-Qaeda Jihad in Europe, claimed the blasts and threatened similar attacks against Italy, Denmark and other "Crusader" states with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It's reasonably clear that this is a series of terrorist attacks" intended to coincide with the G8 meeting, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said before cutting short his stay at the summit and flying back to London.
US President George W. Bush vowed the war on terrorism would continue until "an ideology of hate" had been overcome.
"They have such evil in their heart that they will take the lives of innocent folks. The war on terrorism is on," Bush told reporters on the sidelines of the three-day summit of top industrialised nations, which was set to continue despite the blasts.
Rush-hour attacks coordinated
London's deputy police chief Brian Paddick said at least 33 people were confirmed dead in the morning rush-hour wave of coordinated strikes.
Seven were killed in a first explosion in an underground railway tunnel near Moorgate on the edge of London's financial district, 21 in a second near King's Cross and another five at Edgware Road station in west London. An unknown number of people also died in a blast on a bus near Russell Square, Paddick told a news conference.
An ambulance service official said that 345 people were injured, 45 of them seriously.
Paddick said it was not clear if the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers or if the bombs were left in the Underground system and the bus.
"We are treating this as a terrorist incident. We are keeping an open mind as to who is responsible," he said, adding that police have received no claims of responsibility and had received no warnings prior to the blasts.
Underground, bus network suspended
London Underground officials confirmed the entire underground and bus network had been suspended, and would be seriously affected for some time.
The attacks triggered immediate global security fears, and London and Paris stock markets began to tumble.
Security was stepped up in New York and Washington, still jittery after the September 2001 attacks on the United States by the al-Qaeda terror network, while the nationwide US rail system, Amtrak, also said it raised its security alert level.
Security beefed up across Europe
Governments across Europe beefed up security in airports, rail stations and public transport systems.
France, which lost out to Britain in the bid to host the 2012 Olympics, raised its anti-terror alert to red, the second highest rating, while Italy convened a meeting of top police and anti-terrorism chiefs in Rome.
In Spain, the attacks recalled that country's worst terrorist attack on March 11, 2004, in which 191 were killed and 1900 in a series of train bombings in Madrid blamed on al-Qaeda.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced that "all alert and prevention systems" had been activated.
In a statement, the G8 leaders said the bombings were "not an attack on one nation, but on all nations and on civilised people everywhere".
Group claims attacks
In a statement posted on the internet, but which could not be authenticated, the Organisation of al-Qaeda Jihad in Europe said: "Heroic mujahedins carried out a sacred attack in London, and here is Britain burning in fear, terror and fright in the north, south, east and west."
The group said the attacks were "in response to the massacres carried out by Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan".
"We have repeatedly warned the government and people of Britain, and we have now fulfilled our promise and have carried out a sacred military attack in Britain," it said.
Blood-spattered victims poured out of tube stations
In London, thousands of people poured into the streets from underground stations, some covered in blood and soot, some in tears, many visibly shocked.
"There was a loud bang and the train ground to a halt. People started panicking, screaming and crying as smoke came into the carriage," said Arash Kazerouni (22) who had been travelling from Liverpool Street, which serves the main financial district.
"I saw three bodies on the track," said another witness, Scott Wenbournen, at Aldgate station. "I couldn't look, it was so horrific.
"I think one was moving but I'm not too sure. There were also, I think, some bodies in the carriage. Some were moving but I couldn't really look. No one was attending to them."
Bus torn apart
The roof of the double-decker bus was torn off by the force of one blast.
"It was terrible. The bus went to pieces. There were so many bodies on the floor," said Ayobami Bello (46) a security guard at the nearby London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine.
"The back was completely gone, it was blown off completely and a dead body was hanging out and there were dead bodies on the road, it was a horrible thing," said Bello, adding that other bodies sat slumped in their bus seats, some with arms and legs missing.
The blasts came amid Britain's biggest ever security operation to protect the G8 summit hosted by Blair in Gleneagles, Scotland some 720 kilometres north of London.
Meanwhile, in Singapore, the chief executive of London's victorious 2012 Games bid, Keith Mills, said Olympic celebrations would be put on hold.
"It's terribly unfortunate in terms of timing and clearly all our celebrations of the result yesterday will have to be put on hold," Mills said.
One of the evacuated stations was Stratford, which will be a key transport link for the site of the Olympic Games.
AFP
