JANE WARDELL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON — Three blasts rocked the London subway and one tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour today, sending bloodied victims fleeing in what a shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair called “barbaric” terrorist attacks.
A U.S. law enforcement official said at least 40 people were killed and London hospitals reported more than 300 injured.
Blair said the attacks were clearly designed to coincide with the opening of the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. They also came a day after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics.
The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity because British officials have yet to make public the death toll. U.S. authorities learned of the number from their British counterparts, according to the official.
Officials at seven major hospitals surveyed by The Associated Press reported that 334 people had been wounded, including more than 120 who were treated and released. Police said 150 had been seriously injured. British police earlier had reported two killed.
“Things are still relatively confused,” Superintendent John Morgan told reporters.
Bloodied and bandaged witnesses reported panicked crowds fleeing the blast sites. A witness at the bus explosion said the entire top deck of the bus was destroyed.
Before returning to London, Blair said the meeting of world leaders would continue.
“Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations throughout the world,” said Blair.
In Cairo, Egypt, a group calling itself “The Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe” posted a claim of responsibility for the series of blasts in London, saying they were in retaliation for Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The statement was published on a website popular with Islamic militants, according to Der Spiegel magazine in Berlin, which republished the text on its own website.
The authenticity of the message could not be immediately confirmed.
Britain’s home secretary confirmed that there were four explosions in central London on today.
Three were on subway trains and the fourth was on a bus, Home Secretary Charles Clarke told the House of Commons. “We do not know who or what organizations are responsible for these terrible criminal acts.”
Sir Ian Blair, London’s police chief, said he was concerned the explosions were a co-ordinated attack but said he wouldn’t speculate on who was responsible. He said officials had found indications of explosives at one of the sites.
Denying an earlier report, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said that Israel was not warned by Scotland Yard in advance of the blasts.
Blair said British security forces “have been at a very high state of alert.”
“Of course if there had been any kind of specific warnings we would have dealt with it,” Blair said.
One witness, Darren Hall, said some passengers emerging from an evacuated subway station had soot and blood on their faces. He told BBC TV that he was evacuated along with others near the major King’s Cross station and only afterward heard a blast.
Police confirmed an explosion destroyed a double-decker bus at Russell Square in central London. Dow Jones Newswires reported that police said there were explosions on two other buses, but police hadn’t confirmed those blasts.
Jay Kumar, a business owner near the site of the bus blast, said he ran out of his shop when he heard a loud explosion. He said the top deck of the bus had collapsed, sending people tumbling to the floor.
Many appeared badly injured, and bloodied people ran from the scene.
“A big blast, a big bomb,” he told The Associated Press. ``People were running this way panicked. They knew it was a bomb. Debris flying all over, mostly glass.”
“I was on the bus in front and heard an incredible bang, I turned round and half the double-decker bus was in the air,” Belinda Seabrook told Press Association, the British news agency.
Police said incidents were reported at the Aldgate station near the Liverpool Street railway terminal, Edgware Road and King’s Cross in north London, Old Street in the financial district and Russell Square, near the British Museum.
Bradley Anderson, a subway passenger, told Sky News that “there was some kind of explosion or something” as his train reached the Edgware Road station in northeast London.
“Everything went black and we collided into some kind of oncoming train,” Anderson said.
Simon Corvett, 26, who was on an eastbound train from Edgware Road station, said: “All of sudden there was this massive huge bang.”
“It was absolutely deafening and all the windows shattered,” he said. “There were just loads of people screaming and the carriages filled with smoke.
“You could see the carriage opposite was completely gutted,” he said. “There were some people in real trouble.”
London’s cellphone network was working after the explosions but was overloaded and spotty, limiting communication.
The explosions sent stocks plummeting in Europe, with several of the major indexes down three per cent.
On March 11, 2004, terrorist bombs on four commuter trains in Madrid killed 191 people.
The only snide commentary at all for this story that I can reckon is that I would be furious as a citizen of Britain. While my father was born in the Mother country and I have been considering the place as a secondary residence in life, or at least, a dreamy place to get a masters degree, I have to say I do not feel connected to the political life of Britain. For this, I can only imagine the outrage in some citizens against their government who lead them into George's War in the first place. With the downing street memo becoming public, and the already flat level of support for the war both internationally and domestically in the UK, and then becoming a primary target of terrorist attacks after the fact... after the war was promised to bring more safety, peace, and security to the western world... after being lied to by entire administrations... those that died in these attacks, those who are injured severely or mildly, those who now must live that much closer to the war on terrorism and the fear that will be born from this event onwards... I'm at a loss for finding any other conclusion to these points other than that the people should be furious. They've already lost hundreds of their own children in the chaos of the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a sad day for those citizens who either did or didn't believe the wars would bring greater peace.
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