The four bombings or attempted bombings that rocked London’s transport network on Thursday were intended to kill and bore similarities to the deadly blasts in the city two weeks ago, the city’s police chief said.
Ian Blair, metropolitan police Commissioner, also said the attacks could provide a ”significant breakthrough” in the police investigation as there is a lot of forensic evidence still at the four scenes.
He was speaking after four bomb blasts or attempted blasts, which went off almost simultaneously, sparked an emergency at three subway stations in south, west and north-central London as well as in the east, where an explosion went off on a bus.
”In each of these scenes, attempts have been made to set off explosive devices,” Blair told a news conference.
”Clearly the intention must have been to kill. You don’t do this with any other intention,” he said. ”I think the important point is that the intention of the terrorists has not been fulfilled.”
Police reported that one person had been injured, but London Ambulance said it had not received any casualties and Blair confirmed that there had been no fatalities.
Fifty-six people, including the four bombers, died in the July 7 attacks.
As for whether there are any links between the two attacks, Blair said it is too soon to tell.
”I don’t think I am in a position to say that it is connected. I think that will take a little time,” he told reporters.
”There is a resonance here, I mean these are four attacks, there were four attacks before,” he said.
”Whether or not this was directly connected in the sense that it was carried out by the same group of people, however loosely knit, I think that is going to take a little bit longer before we can qualify that,” Blair said.
The commissioner noted, however, that the attack could help to throw a light on police investigations.
”We do believe that this may represent a significant breakthrough in the sense that there is obviously forensic material at these scenes which may be very helpful to us, so I feel very positive about some of these developments,” he said without specifying further.
He said explosives officers and forensic experts were sifting through the evidence in a bid to paint a clearer picture of what happened.
They ”are just going to take their time to examine all of this, which ones were detonated, which parts had gone off and exploded”, he said. ”That is going to take a while and we have just got to be patient about it.”
As for reports that a nail bomb had been among the explosions, Blair said he was unable to comment.
”I can neither confirm or deny,” Blair said.
Two arrests in the capital, one at Downing Street and another close to Great Scotland Yard, that occurred during the emergency, were unconnected, said the police chief. — Sapa-AFP