The IRA claimed responsibility Monday for a blast that gutted a double-decker bus in London's tourist district, ripping off the top like a sardine can. Police said the bus was not the target and were trying to determine if the lone fatality was the bomber.
The British Broadcasting Corp. said it received the claim in its office in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and that the caller used a recognized Irish Republican Army code-word.The IRA, angry over the slow pace of Northern Ireland peace talks, broke its 17-month truce Feb. 9 with a deadly bomb attack on an east London business district. The group, which wants to end British rule of Northern Ireland, planted another bomb in a central London phone booth on Thursday; police deactivated it before it could cause any harm.
Scotland Yard said there was no warning before the bus exploded at 10:38 p.m. (3:38 p.m. MST) at the edge of the theater district near Covent Garden's crowded restaurants and bars.
The No. 171 bus had just crossed Waterloo Bridge and turned into the Aldwych, a busy intersection, when the bomb set it ablaze, tore off the roof and blackened much of the lower deck. Sections of the red roof lay scattered in the street, and shards of metal dangled from the chassis. Nine people were taken to hospitals, including one man believed to be the bus driver.
"I heard a very loud explosion and a very loud bang," said Canadian student Mark Johnson, who was in a pub across the street.
"We ran outside and asked the bar manager to call the police and ambulance. We knew immediately what had happened . . . I don't know where all this hatred comes from."
Commander John Grieve, head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist unit, said the bus "was not the intended target." He said police had not ruled out the possibility that the person killed was carrying the bomb.
Sky Television quoted an unidentified witness as saying the victim was a man who had sat on the top deck of the bus carrying a briefcase.
Anti-terrorism officers who discovered the body while searching the bus early Monday wouldn't say whether it was a man or awoman.
The IRA statement said the "bomb which exploded last night was one of our devices.
"We can say at this stage we regret the loss of life and injuries which occurred," the statement said.
The bombing reinforced fears that the outlawed IRA has decided to target London - not Northern Ireland - in its renewed guerrilla campaign, probably because of the publicity it receives in Britain.
The IRA has attacked airports, subways, trains and buses, but its three previous attacks on buses, in 1974 and 1988, were against vehicles carrying soldiers, not civilians.
The bomb that went off Sunday exploded outside the Waldorf Hotel in London's tourist and entertainment district, an area that would have been filled with theatergoers on any other night but Sunday, when most London stages are dark. There was little damage to surrounding buildings.
Charles Schlumberger, a banker from Zurich, Switzerland, was walking near the bus when the bomb went off.
"Debris and glass was floating through the air like snow and smoke was billowing from the bus," he said.
Attorney Raymond Levy jumped from his car and ran to the bus when he saw the explosion.
"There were flames everywhere," he said. "The engine was still running and I was very worried that the petrol would explode. With the help of a cab driver, we undid the bonnet (hood) of the bus and turned the engine off."
Covent Garden, once London's main fruit and vegetable market, is near the site of the blast, as are the London School of Economics, the headquarters of BBC Radio's World Service and Somerset House - a Renaissance palace built in 1550, now home of the priceless Courtauld Institute art collection.