Where Were the Explosive Materials in the London Bomb Cars?

Scotland Yard, with all its protestations of leveling frankly with the London public on the two foiled car bomb attacks on central London Friday, June 29, has referred to 60 liters of gasoline, gas canisters and nails found in the two Mercedes, which would have cost many lives had they exploded. But not a word was said about any actual bombs or explosive materials found in the two cars.
Neither has any description been offered of a mechanism for igniting the inflammable materials. The missing drivers of the two cars could of course have tossed a match before running off, causing a fireball and exploding the gas cylinders. However these three elements are normally used by al Qaeda and other Middle East terrorists to intensify the damage and loss of life caused by explosives – not as a substitute.
That is not the only missing element from the London Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist authorities’ account of the episode.
The police explosives officer who disabled or disconnected the cell phone in the first car was lauded for his bravery. Later, it was said that the phone was defective. Furthermore, nothing was said about a trigger mechanism that should have been present for activation by remote dialing to the suspect cell phone.
The mobile telephone device for blowing up explosive charges was devised by the Palestinian Mohammad Dahlan in 2000 as a terrorist weapon par excellence against civilians. The Fatah members under his command used it for a long, deadly series of bus blasts in Israeli towns and on its highways.
The terrorist would mount the targeted bus carrying a packet of explosives and a cell phone. Two or three bus stops later, after hiding the bomb under a seat and placing the cell phone on to top of another seat, he would step off the bus and be picked up by a following car. From a safe distance, he would put in a call to the discarded cell phone, which would activate the trigger and blow up the bomb.
The casualties were heavy. In 2002, the Israeli authorities set up a system of security guards to search bus passengers before they alighted. The Palestinian bomb engineers then switched to another innovative method: the explosive vests favored up to the present by Islamist suicide killers.
It is possible that all these missing elements were not missing at all from the bomb cars, but only left out of Scotland Yard’s reports to the public. On the other hand, all the available information adds up to one conclusion: The two suspect cars discovered in the Haymarket theater and club district of the West End Friday night and in Cockspur Street round the corner near Trafalgar Square were not “viable.”
In fact, the second car proved to be harmless when it was bumped repeatedly, first by wheel clampers then towed from its illegal parking spot to a police pound in Park Lane.
At the same time, while the inflammable materials found in the two cars could have caused harm but were fairly primitive, the tactical planning of the London plot showed craft and forethought, which makes it all the more puzzling – unless it was a diversion.
The two cars, both Mercedes, reached the targeted district of central London at around the same time when hordes of people were leaving places of entertainment without arousing suspicion. British intelligence services had no advance knowledge of this particular terrorist attack and were therefore taken unawares.
Seventeen, hours earlier, Abu Osama al-Hazeen posted a message on a popular jihadi chat room saying, “In the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful. Is Britain Longing for al Qaeda’s bombings?”
Clearly international al Qaeda was in direct communication with the British bombers and gave them advance notice to prepare for an important event. It appears that Western intelligence, including the British, are still short of analysts with a knowledge of Arabic and understanding of the Islamists’ Internet.