Terrorists Strike in London

Bombs ripped through three Underground trains and a red double-decker bus in central London during the Thursday morning rush hour, killing at least 38 people and wounding more than 700 in the deadliest terrorist attack on British soil.

The blasts were apparently timed to coincide with the first full working day of a summit in Scotland where British Prime Minister Tony Blair was playing host to leaders of the world’s chief industrialized nations.

British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, who briefly replaced Blair as the Group of 8 summit chairman while the prime minister rushed to London, said in Scotland that the coordinated bombings bore “the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda-related attack.” Police, however, said they could not confirm the claim of responsibility posted on the Internet by a group saying it had links to the terrorist network.

The group, calling itself the Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe, said the blasts were in retaliation for British military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same organization posted new threats against Italy and Denmark, two U.S. allies with troops in Iraq, causing security officials across Europe and as far away as Mexico to announce heightened states of alert.

Though police stopped short of identifying any individuals or groups, Blair said he suspected the attacks were carried out by militants who claim to act “in the name of Islam.”

“We will not allow violence to change our societies or our values, nor will we allow it to stop the work of this summit,” Blair said at the gathering, with President Bush, French President Jacques Chirac and other leaders of the G-8 nations at his side.

In London, Blair convened a national security meeting with senior advisors and Cabinet members, before returning to the summit.

It was Europe’s worst terrorist attack since the Madrid commuter train bombings on March 11, 2004, killed 191 people.

The three Underground blasts in London occurred within half an hour of one another, beginning at 8:51 a.m. near Liverpool Street Station in the city’s financial district and historic heart. London Underground officials initially thought there was a malfunction or an accident on the line.

But as reports of the other explosions poured in, officials realized that the world’s oldest subway was under lethal assault.

At 8:56 a.m., another blast occurred on the Underground between King’s Cross Station and Russell Square Station. It was followed at 9:17 a.m. by an explosion on a train entering Edgware Road Station, which blew a hole in the side of an oncoming train.

Seven people were confirmed dead in the first explosion, 21 in the second and seven in the third. At least three people were killed in the bus explosion, at the intersection of Upper Woburn Place and Tavistock Square. Officials said they had recovered all the bodies from the blast scenes.

Authorities, however, said the death toll could climb, as the wounded included 45 people who were in serious or critical condition.

Some survivors described nightmarish scenes underground.

Angelo Power, a 43-year-old lawyer, said his train was rocked by a blast near Russell Square. Commuters were thrown to the floor of the carriage, choking from the smoke, their faces torn by glass.

“We were trapped like sardines, waiting to die,” Power, looking dazed in a soot-covered blue business suit, told reporters. “I thought my time was up.”

Passengers were beginning to panic in the blackened tunnel, he said, until finally they were able to break their way out of the train and escape, in some cases by stepping over prone bodies.

Smoke wafted up from the entrances to the Underground station and victims poured out, faces covered in soot, their hands pressed against bleeding heads. Some survivors ran out frantically, clutching each other, seeking safety.

In general, Londoners responded with determination, not panic. Police, firefighters, ambulance services and the Underground authority implemented long-rehearsed plans for responding to terrorist attacks.

During the last three decades, Britons have witnessed numerous terrorist attacks by militants with the Irish Republican Army, which has targeted the city’s financial district, the prime minister’s official residence and even Harrods department store.

In a 1984 bombing, the IRA targeted a conference of the Conservative Party in Brighton, killing five people and narrowly missing then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The British people had been warned repeatedly that they might face such an assault since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. British authorities have tightened border controls and maintained security vigilance.

In November 2003, two truck bombs exploded outside the British Consulate and the headquarters of the London-based HSBC bank in Istanbul, Turkey, killing at least 32 people and wounding more than 500.

After last year’s Madrid train bombings, London went on alert for an attack against “soft” targets here, including transit systems.

On Thursday, Tim O’Toole, managing director of London Underground, pledged that the entire subway system would be searched overnight.

“We are going to look at every inch of every train.... We will do everything to keep our passengers safe,” he told a news conference. Some buses had returned to service by Thursday evening, as had the main surface rail lines.

Police disclosed few details about the attacks, saying only that conventional explosives were used.

A senior U.S. intelligence official confirmed that British authorities had recovered evidence that timing devices were used to detonate the explosives on the subway cars.

“I do have information that timing devices appear to have been used,” the U.S. official said. He offered no further information on the devices, and said he did not know whether cellphones were used, as they were in the Madrid attacks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity during a conference call with reporters in Washington late Thursday.

The intelligence official said he could not confirm reports that the attack on the double-decker bus was carried out by a suicide bomber. He said that Al Qaeda’s role in the attacks, if any, had not been determined, but noted that the bombings had many of the “hallmarks” of an attack by Al Qaeda or its affiliates.

“You can’t draw conclusions from that, but it helps shape your thinking,” the official said.

British officials promised the most intensive terrorism investigation in the country’s history. They were expected to scrutinize the thousands of security cameras that track people in the capital for clues to the identities of the attackers.

Blair gave no sign that he would alter his government’s policies in response to the bombings.

In London, he expressed “profound condolences to the families of the victims and for those who are casualties of this terrorist act.... There will of course now be the most intense police and security service action to make sure that we bring those responsible to justice.

“We know that these people act in the name of Islam, but we also know that the vast majority of Muslims here and abroad are decent and law-abiding people who abhor this act of terrorism every bit as much as we do,” Blair said.

The attackers, he said, “are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, or to try to stop us going about our business as normal, as we are entitled to do, and they should not and will not succeed.”

“The war on terror goes on,” Bush told reporters at Gleneagles, the Scottish golf resort where the G-8 leaders are meeting.

“We will not yield to these people,” he said. “We will not yield to terrorists. We will find them. We will bring them to justice. At the same time, we will spread an ideology of hope and compassion that will overwhelm their ideology of hate.”

The attack came a day after Londoners were celebrating their city being named host of the 2012 Summer Olympics, beating out perennial rival Paris.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone, still in Singapore where that decision was made, condemned what he called a “cowardly attack.”

“This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever,” Livingstone said in a statement.

The shutdown of the transit system after the blasts launched a long, confused commute later in the day for many Londoners. People accustomed to traveling on the Underground had to find another way home. Many shared taxi rides. Others simply walked, leaving the sidewalks crowded while streets were unusually empty without the normal crush of double-decker buses.

“People are just blundering around. They’re lost. They don’t know where to go or what to do,” said Phil Wended, a ruddy-faced newspaper salesman in rolled-up sleeves, hawking the Evening Standard in front of the shuttered Liverpool Street Station. “They only know a few streets round the Tube. They’ve got no idea how to get home.”

Schools in the borough of Westminster, which covers much of west-central London, were ordered closed today because of anticipated continued disruptions on the Underground lines.

Transport for London said today that there would be no subway service on the Circle line and the Hammersmith & City line, nor on portions of other lines or at King’s Cross Station.

Police advised those who did not need to be at work to stay home, and Underground crowds were sparse this morning at the Baker Street Station. “It’s usually busier, a lot busier, 10 times busier at least,” customer service agent Michael O’Sullivan said.

But some subway commuters said they had no choice. “I’m going to risk it because I have to get to work in the morning at 7 o’clock,” said Hisham Changi, 20, a building manager. “I’m a little shaky about it, but I think it’s going to be all right.”

Authorities said that they were able to react smoothly to the disaster because they had been rehearsing for such an attack for years. “We are clearly shocked at what has happened today, but we are not surprised,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick of the Metropolitan Police said.

Peter Watson, a freelance writer living in the Chelsea section of southwest London, attributed the relative calm in the city to its long experience with IRA bombings. Unlike Thursday’s attack, however, IRA attacks usually were preceded by warnings, to minimize casualties.

“If you look at it as a coordinated attack on a number of Tube stations and the fact that it was carried out at the rush hour when it would kill and injure a lot of people, that is what Al Qaeda wants: a lot of people watching and a lot of people dead,” said Paul Wilkinson, a professor of international relations specializing in terrorism.

“We are all so used to it with the IRA surprise attacks -- it’s not something you dwell on, but you take it in your stride,” said Shelley Craner, 35, a public relations worker from London’s Maida Vale neighborhood. Thursday’s bombings would not cause her to change her routine, she said.

“It means they’ve won if you do.”

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Times staff writers Bettina Boxall, Sarah Price Brown, Ken Silverstein, Tracy Wilkinson Janet Stobart and special correspondent Vanora McWalters in London, and staff writers Sebastian Rotella in New York, Greg Miller in Washington and Alissa J. Rubin in Vienna contributed to this report.