Bomb Blast Hits London; 36 Injured

A powerful bomb exploded in a London business district Friday, injuring at least 36 people and threatening to derail U.S.-brokered peace talks over Northern Ireland.

The bomb in an underground parking garage detonated about an hour after the outlawed Irish Republican Army announced that it was ending a 17-month cease-fire in its guerrilla war against Britain, which rules Northern Ireland.

The IRA did not claim responsibility for the blast, but U.S. and British officials said they suspected that the group planted the bomb as the first step in a new terrorist offensive.

Minutes before the bomb exploded, Gerry Adams, president of the IRA’s political arm, called the White House to warn that “disturbing news” was on the way.

No deaths were reported in the explosion, which occurred one minute after 7 p.m. about four miles east of the city’s center as commuters were still leaving their offices. People with blood streaming from wounds ran out of offices and pubs, some collapsing on the sidewalks, news agencies reported.

One building partly collapsed, and glass was broken in several structures. The explosion was heard for miles. Police said five people were seriously hurt.

Adams called Anthony Lake, President Clinton’s national security advisor, “literally minutes” before the explosion to warn that trouble was brewing but “did not convey specific knowledge that a bombing was imminent,” a White House official said.

Adams telephoned Lake again after the blast; the two talked several times during the day. White House officials would not disclose the substance of the calls.

In a statement delivered to Ireland’s state-owned radio network Friday, the IRA said it was ending the truce and blamed British intransigence in the peace talks for its decision. The talks, which began in 1993, have stalled during the last six months over British Prime Minister John Major’s insistence that the IRA give up its weapons as a precondition to full-scale negotiations.

“Instead of embracing the peace process, the British government acted in bad faith,” the IRA statement charged. “Time and time again over the last 18 months, selfish party, political and sectional interests in the London Parliament have been placed before the rights of the people of Ireland.”

Clinton, Major and Irish Prime Minister John Bruton all condemned the bombing.

“The terrorists who perpetrated today’s attack cannot be allowed to derail the effort to bring peace to the people of Northern Ireland, a peace they overwhelmingly support,” said Clinton, who has made the Irish peace talks a foreign policy priority.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms this cowardly action and hope those responsible are brought swiftly to justice,” he said.

Major called the explosion an “appalling outrage,” adding, “I now call on the leadership of Sinn Fein [the IRA’s political arm] and the IRA to condemn immediately and unequivocally those who planted this bomb and any suggestions that the cease-fire is now over.”

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The IRA has launched terrorist attacks for 25 years in a campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland. The province’s population of 1.6 million is about two-thirds Protestant, mostly loyal to Britain, and one-third Roman Catholic, many of whom seek unification with the Republic of Ireland to the south.

In September 1994, the IRA announced that it would observe a cease-fire as long as peace talks made progress. Friday’s bombing posed an immediate threat to the already sputtering negotiations--and a diplomatic dilemma for the Clinton administration.

Clinton helped arrange the 1994 cease-fire by pledging that Sinn Fein would have a seat at the talks and by meeting with Adams.

But Adams did not explicitly condemn the bombing, even though Lake asked him to do so, according to a U.S. official.

Adams said he “presumed” the IRA had carried out the attack and issued a statement echoing the IRA in blaming Major for the situation.

“My response to tonight’s news is one of sadness,” he said. “I regret that an unprecedented opportunity for peace has foundered on the refusal of the British government and the unionist [pro-British Protestant] leaders to enter into dialogue and substantive negotiations.”

Adams said that he and his allies “still remain totally wedded to our peace strategy.”

Adams has long maintained that Sinn Fein, a legal political party, is separate from the IRA. But U.S., British and Irish officials say that the two are closely linked in practice and coordinate their actions.

Clinton, Lake and other U.S. officials went into action immediately Friday to try to salvage the peace process. The president telephoned Major and Bruton, and aides talked with David Trimble, leader of Northern Ireland’s biggest Protestant party, as well as with Adams. Trimble is scheduled to arrive here today to meet with White House officials.

Clinton said he was “deeply concerned” that the IRA had unilaterally ended the cease-fire and warned pointedly that “no one and no organization” has the right to deny peace to Northern Ireland.

Friday’s bomb--the first in the capital since the cease-fire began--exploded in a newly redeveloped office area, a quarter of a mile from the Canary Wharf business complex, in the Docklands neighborhood. It rattled Britain’s tallest building, the 52-story Canary Wharf Tower, which was evacuated. Fire engines and 80 ambulances raced to the scene, and nearby hospitals went on emergency footing.

Times staff writer John M. Broder contributed to this report.