British police patrols stepped up after bombs found

LONDON, June 30 (Reuters) British police bolstered patrols on the streets of London and scoured CCTV footage today after foiling a possible al Qaeda plot to detonate two fuel-and-nail-packed car bombs in the heart of the capital.

The Metropolitan police said they had reviewed plans for public events over the coming 10 days, including a massive Gay Pride parade in London today, the Wimbledon tennis tournament and a concert for Princess Diana tomorrow, to ensure that there were no public security threats.

''Appropriate policing will be in place for all events,'' a police spokeswoman said. ''Safety and security is our number one priority.'' While there was a visible increase in police patrols around key installations, including the Houses of Parliament, Londoners and tourists appeared to be unperturbed, going about their business as usual despite widespread rain.

An intense counter-terrorism investigation has been launched following the discovery in the early hours of yesterday of a metallic green Mercedes packed with up to 60 litres of fuel, several gas canisters and a large quantity of nails.

The vehicle was left outside a night club in the thriving Theatreland district of London and only aroused suspicion after ambulance workers, treating someone who had fallen ill, thought they noticed smoke billowing inside the vehicle.

On inspection, a mobile phone, which security experts believe may have been a triggering device, was found inside the fume-filled car.

A second fuel, gas and nail-packed car, also a Mercedes, was later found to have been parked just a few hundred yards from the first, before it was towed away by traffic wardens in the early hours of Friday for violating parking restrictions.

Police said the two vehicles were clearly linked. While both bombs were quickly defused, had they detonated, they would have caused ''significant'' casualties, police said.

Intelligence sources believe there is a rising probability that the plot was hatched by an al Qaeda style group.

''The feeling it is Islamist, rather than the other possibilities, is very quietly growing stronger,'' a source said.

CCTV FOOTAGE The area of London where the car bombs were left, known as Haymarket, is one of the busiest areas of the capital and also one of the most intensely monitored by CCTV surveillance.

Police said they were studying hundreds of hours of footage in the hunt for possible suspects. An American television channel reported that a ''crystal clear'' image of a suspect had been found, but the police would not confirm that.

Security sources said an important angle of investigation was an Islamist website called al-Hesbah which on Thursday carried a posting by a regular contributor saying that London was going to be bombed, according to CBS television.

''It will obviously be a line of enquiry,'' the source said.

The Scotsman newspaper reported that an Iraqi man who absconded from police monitoring 11 days ago was also being sought. Scotland Yard said it did not discuss possible suspects.

Some security commentators have drawn a link between the car bomb plot in London and those used in Iraq, where gas canisters and fuel detonated remotely by a mobile phone are a common and deadly form of attack.

The head of London's anti-terrorism unit, Peter Clarke, said there were similarities between yesterday's incident and an earlier plot, uncovered in 2004, in which an al Qaeda militant planned to detonate gas-fuelled bombs in limousines.

Reuters SBC VV1625