Four Weeks On, London Teems With Police

It was a quiet, jittery morning, of a kind that had become all too common.

Six thousand police officers blanketed the city Thursday, four weeks after blasts shattered subway cars and a bus, two weeks since a second attempt to bomb the transit system. Commuters streamed past bomb-sniffing dogs. They hurried beneath sniper scopes, studied the faces of those around them. They wriggled in their seats and some swallowed hard when trains lurched from platforms and roared through tunnels toward the next stop.

It was a morning to cope, a morning of new threats. Most Londoners feared militants would use the day, exactly four weeks since the July 7 attack, to strike again. There apparently was no specific intelligence about a possible third attempt, and rush hour was uneventful.

But then came another jolt. In a videotape broadcast Thursday, Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s lieutenant, told Britain that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s support of U.S. policies in the Middle East had “brought you destruction to the heart of London, and he will bring you more destruction, God willing.”

The ride out of London was more nerve-wracking than the journey in.

The city’s Piccadilly subway line reopened stops that had been closed by bomb damage. But many commuters chose alternate routes, bypassing the yellow florescent jackets and the black guns of police officers. Since July 7, when four bombs killed 52 commuters and the four bombers, subway ridership has dropped by 30% on weekends and as much as 15% on weekdays, according to the city’s transportation service.

“I was on the Tube and a white guy next to me was staring at a dark-skinned guy,” said Anetta Bentley, a shop worker in Notting Hill. “The dark-skinned guy look at him and said, ‘Why you looking at me? Why you looking at me? You want to check my rucksack?’ But everyone was looking at him and his rucksack. We couldn’t help it. It’s strange and not easy getting back to normal.”

Above the Covent Garden subway station, Ismael Abdurahman, 23, appeared in Bow Street Magistrates’ Court wearing a navy blue jacket and matching pants. He blew a kiss to two women sitting in the gallery and became the first suspect indicted in connection with the failed July 21 transit bombings. He was charged with withholding information about alleged bomber Hussain Osman, also known as Hamdi Isaac, that allowed him to escape to Italy.

“The defendant will be contesting the charge as he has no involvement in any terrorist activity whatsoever,” said Abdurahman’s lawyer, Anne Faul. Judge Timothy Workman denied bail, and Abdurahman, facing a maximum penalty of five years in prison, waved again to the two women, one of them weeping, before he was led away. Two other suspects were charged later in the day with the same offense, withholding information on the alleged attackers, the BBC reported.

The subways rattled on. Double-decker buses, shiny and skimming trees, meandered through traffic, past Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, skirting the fringes of Buckingham Palace. Cellphones rang, tourists unfolded maps, and the largest police presence in decades gripped the city. Farther north, beyond Ladbroke Grove and Queens Way, Richard Moss, an engineering student, walked with a backpack on an overpass above rusty train tracks. July 7 and July 21 were both Thursdays, and he wondered what would happen this Thursday.

“Some Londoners are apprehensive. Others are moving forward and getting on with their lives,” he said. “But we’re doing these things individually. We’ve somehow lost a sense of community. Instead of cultures coming together and fusing, we’re doing it all apart and we’ve got to stop that.

“I’m not scared to take the subways or buses, but my girlfriend is. She has that sense of not being sure. You used to know what terrorists looked like, but now they look like everybody. My uncle lives about 10 minutes that way,” he said, pointing west. “Two of the guys they arrested in the bombings lived right next door to him and he didn’t even know.”

On a TV in a nearby cafe was a man who didn’t look like everyone else. He wore a black turban and a white tunic. A rifle leaned next to him. In the five-minute tape delivered to Al Jazeera television channel Thursday, Zawahiri talked about destruction and threatened the United States and Britain: “If you go on with the same policy of aggression against Muslims, you will see horror that will make you forget what you had seen in Vietnam.

“There is no exit from Iraq except in immediate withdrawal. Any delay in taking that decision means nothing but more dead, more losses.”

Blair’s office declined to comment on the videotape, but President Bush, in a news conference at his ranch near Crawford, Texas, said, “They’re terrorists and they’re killers. And they will kill innocent people trying to get us to withdraw from the world so they can impose their dark vision on the world. We will stay the course; we will complete the job in Iraq.”

Steps away from the London cafe, Eddie Shaw sat on his stoop, studying the tattoos streaking his forearms. So much going on around him; you could hear the trains in the distance and catch the foreign syllables of passing boys with turned-around ball-caps. Shaw, an out-of-work Elvis impersonator, surmised that London was getting a bit spooky.

“Even getting on the old buses and trains, I’m suspicious,” he said. “You look at people carrying bags and packages. Police were called right on this street not long ago because of a left package. The threats used to be far away. Now they’re on your doorstep.” He stood up to go inside. He was waiting for his buddy, who impersonates Rod Stewart.

“I’m going to Florida in October,” he said. “It’ll be good to get away for a while.”

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Times staff writer Janet Stobart in London contributed to this report.