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American Morning

London Bomb Threat; London Terror Alert

Aired June 29, 2007 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news. Terror alert in London. Police defuse a bomb near the famous Piccadilly Circus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORDON BROWN, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We face a serious and continuous security threat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: The hunt is on for the bomb maker, on this AMERICAN MORNING.

And good morning to you. It's Friday, June the 29th. I'm John Roberts, along with Kiran Chetry. And a lot to get to this morning. A lot going on in London.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: That's right.

It is 6:00 a.m. on the East Coast. It's 11:00 a.m. in London. And that's where news is breaking this morning. A car filled with more than 50 gallons of fuel found right in the middle of a tourist hot spot in the theater district. The Piccadilly Circus tube stop closed. Police defused what they're calling a potentially viable explosive device.

The area has been cordoned off and the city, understandably, is on high alert today. It's the new prime minister's second day in office and we're just away now from the second anniversary of the 7/7 London bombings that took the lives of more than 50 people.

CNN's Nic Robertson is live in London with the breaking developments for us.

Hi, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran.

Well, it is a developing story here. We have just heard that the Piccadilly tube station just around the corner from here has reopened. It appears that whatever the police were doing in there has now ceased and concluded. But let me piece together for you what happened overnight last night.

At about 2:00 in the morning, a vehicle that was parked, the Mercedes silver vehicle that was parked at the end of the street behind me, was reported to the police. By daylight this morning, by about 7:00 this morning, it became clear to the police that this vehicle was, in fact, wired as a bomb. They say that they've discovered 50 gallons of fuel inside the vehicle.

It's not clear at the moment what type of fuel that may be. But it does appear, at least to the police at this time and to government officials here, that this was a very serious bomb, a very serious threat to security in the capital this morning.

The street that we're on here, the streets at the end, all around this area are cordoned off at the moment. The police have, in the last hour or so, removed that silver Mercedes. They had it covered while forensic experts were looking at the vehicle. They have now removed that vehicle and taken it away for further examination.

But it is a developing situation. There certainly is, in the mind of security officials here, the potential for other bombs in other cities around the country, in London at this time. It's not clear. There's been no claims of responsibility so far. Not clear who is behind this. But the police in these situations very aware for the potential for other bombs at this time.

Kiran.

CHETRY: So any apparent target. Tell us about this Tiger Tiger. It's a popular nightclub. They have almost 1,500 or more people packing in there on a night like last night.

ROBERTSON: It could be. That's where the vehicle was discovered, outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub. But it's not clear that that was the intended target.

This is the theater district in London. During the daytime, it would also be very crowded. Was the bomb intended to go off during daytime hours when there would have been a lot of people here, or was it intended to target that nightclub?

It is a popular nightclub. It does stay open late. The vehicle was discovered outside there very late. Indications are perhaps that was the target. But it's not clear.

There is, certainly, as the police and investigators and security officials here are very aware, there has been recorded efforts by al Qaeda to target nightclubs here. Duram Borat (ph) recently sent to prison here. He was plotting to use limousines and explosives in those limousines to target nightclubs. One of those nightclubs, The Ministry of Sound.

So al Qaeda here has a track record of trying to target nightclubs. But the security officials here not linking this particular bomb to the nightclub specifically. Not linking it specifically to anyone who might have been behind it. Particularly at this stage, not linking it to al Qaeda at the moment.

Kiran.

CHETRY: I'm sure they're checking out all those possibilities as we speak.

The other thing that police had mentioned, they referred to it as being lucky because they were tipped off by just passers by who thought that the car looked suspicious. What role do everyday people now play in preventing possible terror attacks?

ROBERTSON: They play an absolutely huge role. And I was talking with the head of terrorism here in London, Peter Clark, recent. And he said one of the things that concern him most is that people in Britain perhaps don't perceive the potential for a terror attack quite as acutely as the intelligence services and the police here do that. And by that he meant that he doesn't think that people are on the lookout as much as they should be.

The police here, the intelligence services, very, very aware that there is a very, very real threat for other terror attacks in the country. At the moment, the country's on its second highest terror threat level, meaning terrorists have not only the intention but the capability to strike at any time.

And certainly if, as we understand at the moment, that the police received a tipoff from a member of public about this vehicle, that will certainly be something the police will be very happy about because they've been concerned that members of the public perhaps are a little bit complacent, particularly at 2:00 in the morning. This is a theater district. Again, it's a place of entertainment. Perhaps people have had a few drinks and perhaps people in this area at that time wouldn't necessarily be thinking about the potential for a terror threat here. So the police will be very, very happy with that and it's something they will hope that they'll see more of in the future.

Kiran.

CHETRY: Our Nic Robertson live for us in London. We'll check back in with you as soon as we get more information. Thanks so much.

ROBERTS: Of course, today's suspected bomb presents its first big test for the new government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He just named his cabinet. This morning, of course, the British government has now gone into emergency mode to try to get to the bottom of who might be behind this. Just a little while ago, Gordon Brown addressed the cameras. Here's what he had to say about today's incident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORDON BROWN, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: The home secretary will be chairing a proper meeting, after which he will report to a meeting of the cabinet this morning. The first duty of a government is the security of the people. And as the police and security services have said on so many occasions, we face a serious and continued security threat to our country.

We should allow the police to investigate this incident and then report to us. But this incident does recall the need for us to be vigilant at all times and the public to be alert at any potential incident. And I will stress to the cabinet that the vigilance must be maintained over these next few days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: And new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, the committee that she'll be chairing the meeting of is called COBRA. It is the emergency committee of the British government. Gordon Brown, only three days as prime minister now and he's faced with a crisis like this. It will be interesting to see how he deals with this.

Our homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve is on the telephone with us now. She's monitoring developments.

Jeanne, what do you expect would be the response of major cities here in the United States as a result of what was found today in London?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we don't have an official U.S. government reaction at this point in time to the discovery of this in London. However, whenever there is an event of this magnitude overseas, there were reverberations on this side. For instance, a London train bombing caused a lot of uptick in security around trains here. We there have been aviation plots elsewhere, we have seen a reaction here.

We are certainly going to see some kind of reaction here, at least as far as putting law enforcement on its toes, particularly as the Fourth of July holiday approaches. For years, that's been a security concern because, of course, people gather in large numbers to celebrate.

Of course, the U.S. has seen devices of this sort itself. I remind you of the Oklahoma City bombing when a van was packed with ammonium nitrate and exploded to tragic effect in Oklahoma City, killing many. And it has been a concern in recent years that something like this might erupt again because vehicles have been used with such lethality in Iraq. Law enforcement has been undergoing training into recognize these kind of devices, how to diffuse them, how to do forensics on them.

I would say that the fact that this was discovered before it was exploded is probably a forensic bonanza for law enforcement. It probably will give them a lot of leads on that vehicle and the materials that they find inside..

I'd also comment on the public alert aspect of this, as you were talking to Nic about. Every time in this country there has been an uptick in the alert level, the emphasis from authorities has been for everyday citizens to keep their eyes open and report anything suspicious that they see to authorities. It has always been felt that individuals in their communities are the ones who are going to recognize anomalies, who are going to know when there is something out of place, who are going to know when there is something suspicious. Here, as overseas, there has been fear of complacency among the U.S. public. But here we have tangible proof of just how important it is for the public to be aware.

John.

ROBERTS: Now, Jeanne, at this point we have no idea who was behind this. We don't know if this was a homegrown group that may have been responsible for this. Whether it was an international group. Whether it was tied to any particular region.

But there's no question that within the city of London itself, there has been a growth in extremism in the last few years. Is there anything comparable to that that we know of here in the United States?

MESERVE: Nothing comparable to what you see in London. The numbers simply don't compare. But there certainly has been growing concern. Just this week, the Senate Homeland Committee had another in a series of hearings that it has held on radicalization in this country. There's been particular attention to radicalization that's been going on in prisons in the United States. And you may recall that a cell was broken up in California which involved people who had been recruited to a radical form of Islam while they were in prison.

So certainly concern about it. Something authorities have been keeping their eye on and talking a lot about. But is it comparable to what they've seen in Britain? Authorities don't believe so.

John.

ROBERTS: All right. Jeanne Meserve on the phone with us this morning.

Jeanne, we'll let you go work your sources. We'll get back to you a little bit later on this morning.

Jeanne, thanks.

CHETRY: And we're getting new details coming into us every moment about this situation in London. And we want to talk to security expert Will Geddes right now. He's on the phone -- or he joins us now from London.

Will, thanks for being with us.

We're hearing that it was actually a bouncer, possibly, from a nearby nightclub who said they saw a car being driven erratically and then it crashed into a bin that witnesses are saying they saw the driver get out and run off. What does that tell you possibly about what was going on?

WILL GEDDES, SECURITY EXPERT: Well, I think certainly what that would tell us is that it's not necessarily resolute that that was his destination. What the bouncers apparently, the doormen have actually fed back in their report, was that the vehicle was driving erratically and, as you say, crashed into some bins.

Now the hay (ph) market itself - I know the area very, very well. My offices are located literally five minutes walkway -- is a very, very solid area in terms of it being a main through route in the west end. Now to park a vehicle up there would raise a lot of suspicion because not a lot of vehicles are able to park up there, certainly during silent hours or in the middle of the night. And this was about 2:00 in the morning.

CHETRY: Right. A former commander with Scotland Yard saying that it bore all the hallmarks of a failed suicide bomb attempt. What are your thoughts on that?

GEDDES: Well, the only thing that we can draw from that is that this device, in fact, was an ignition device, rather than a detonation device. So, in other words, it wasn't working on a timed device, so that the driver could leave the vehicle parked, get out of the vehicle and literally walk away and either detonate it from a close enough proximity for, obviously, that detonator to work, or from an alternative location if it was set on a timer.

This would appear, from that statement, to possibly be an ignition device. In other words, the individual would have to be with the device when it goes off.

CHETRY: I got you. We may get more details on that coming up in just 20 minutes, Will, because it looks like Scotland Yard is going to be holding a news conference. Gordon Brown also saying that vigilance must be maintained over the come days. Does that statement mean anything to you in terms of maybe fears that this is just one of several attempts to carry out an attack?

GEDDES: Absolutely. And I think something that we haven't seen yet and something which we really do need to be concerned of, and those of us in the security industry have been planning for, is where we have repercussion attacks. You have a series of different attacks taking place.

Now we saw this, obviously, with the British and London transportation system being on 7/7 and then again an attempt was made on the 21st. There is a possibility, as we're coming up to that anniversary, this could potentially be the first of a couple that may follow.

CHETRY: That's right. We're about a little more than a week away from July 7th. That would be two years since the successful, if you want to put it that way, attack of four British Muslim suicide bombers ended up killing 52 people when they launched their attack. Then it's also the first week with the new prime minister on the job. Any significance of those two in your mind for why it would be a key time to attempt the attack?

GEDDES: Absolutely. And I think it would only be naive to try and believe that Gordon Brown coming into office and taking over as prime minister wouldn't have some critical element of the timing of why this device potentially was being planned, either for today or certainly the early hours of today.

CHETRY: They're calling it a potentially viable explosive device. We see the car there. It looks like a silver Mercedes. Do you think this is a coordinated effort or something that could have been carried out by one person? GEDDES: I think this is something that could be carried out by one person. The sources that I've been speaking to this morning have said that the component parts of this device were fundamentally made up of propane canisters and lots and lots of nails and small shards of metal.

Now this is a very typical VBIED, or vehicle borne improvised explosive device. I've seen lots of these in Iraq myself. And it is a very common tactic used by the insurgents. The actual detonation, or ignition if you like, of the propane is simply to propel all the shards of metal. And it's not the explosion that causes the damage, but it is the bits of metal, obviously, as they fragment into the local area.

CHETRY: Do you remember the 2005 attack? What were they -- what was the, I guess, explosive device used there? Because that proved to be pretty deadly. Fifty-two people killed and there were seven hundred others that were wounded.

GEDDES: Yes, well, absolutely. And I think certainly one of the things that the insurgents would have learned from that is that the component parts that they actually used, and particularly one of the failed devices on the 21st, only gave the police and the intelligence agencies more forensic, if you like, material to work with.

In this particular incident, we're looking at some very basic hardware materials. We're looking at things which could be bought from any hardware store or DIY center without really drawing a great deal of suspicion. And particularly at this time of year, you know it's the summer, a lot of people are buying propane for their barbecues. And, therefore, going in and ordering large canisters of this is not going to make those homeware or hardware stores particularly concerned.

CHETRY: Yes, you do bring up a god point, that there was another attempted attack right after the 7/7 bombings back in 2005 that was a failed attempt on the 21st. And, as you said, they were able to see what the attempted explosive device was there. And hopefully they'll be able to learn from what they find today with that silver Mercedes and the green canister they were able to find.

Will Geddes, thanks so much for joining us.

ROBERTS: We want to go now to CNN's Robin Oakley. He is actually en route to number 10 Downing Street this morning. As we said, this is the first big test of Gordon Brown's new government. He just announced his cabinet this morning, putting together an emergency meeting of COBRA, which is their big emergency committee.

Robin, as Will Geddes was saying, we don't know if this area of Haymarket was the final destination for this vehicle borne improvised explosive device. Taking a look at the satellite map, it is only about a half a mile away from Whitehall and Downing Street. Is there any suggestion this morning that the target could have been bigger than a location in Haymarket? ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No. There's no evidence one way or the other about this. And that the various terrorist plots that the security services have been looking at have included places like nightclubs in their targets, as well as government installations. So it is perfectly possible that the bomb was actually destined for some target around the Haymarket theater area, where a lot of people are celebrating and enjoying themselves in the early hours of the day.

But certainly the politicians are taking this enormously seriously. It's been a really stark reminder of the harsh realities of modern politics for Gordon Brown. This first full day as prime minister, three British soldiers killed in Iraq. The first full day in office of all his new cabinet members, including the new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, we have this terrorist interlude.

And, as you say, the COBRA meeting going on at the moment. A rather exotic name they give the committee involving all the security services and briefs and several contingencies people. It actually stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, rather more prosaic. But that meeting is being chaired by Jacqui Smith, the new home secretary, and the full cabinet, which Gordon Brown had called to discuss other issues later this morning, will get a complete report on the latest terrorist incident.

ROBERTS: It's not like, Robin, that Gordon Brown is new to the job. He's been chancellor of the Exchequer for a long time, had a very close relationship with Tony Blair before that. Would you imagine that he has a lot of experience in homeland security?

OAKLEY: Well, he will have fairly detailed knowledge of the operations because, as chancellor of the Exchequer, his job for the last 10 years, he had to produce the money to fund all the security services operations. Obviously, the home secretary of the day, formerly Dr. John Reid, or before that, a man well known across the world, Jack Straw, who'd also been foreign secretary for a long period, they would have gone to Gordon Brown and said, look, we need to put this money into new personnel, these are the new kinds of threats, this is the equipment we need. So he'd have quite a detailed knowledge from that point of view. What he wouldn't have is detailed knowledge of the day-to-day operations of the security services.

And the kind of level that we have to think about here lies on Mattingham Fuller (ph), the former head of MI-5 (ph), said in a lecture last November that the security services were actually watching 200 potential plots involving 1,600 different individuals. So that gives an idea of the sort of scale of the operations they have to conduct.

John.

ROBERTS: No question, there's a lot of concern there in England.

Robin, is there any thought being given this morning that this may have been one part of a larger plot?

OAKLEY: That is always the fear. And the security services will be absolutely tingling with anticipation at (INAUDIBLE) anything that gives the slightest cause for suspicion as a result of this because we know from some of the intercepts that there have been in the past of intended terrorist plots, that they have often been multi targeted. And, indeed, those terrible bombings in London, on the underground, the subway system, there were four separate incidents involved in those in July two years ago.

So there is certainly that possibly. They'll be very carefully on the watch out for that. And we've had Gordon Brown, of course, the new prime minister, saying that Britain faces a serious and continuous threat, he said this morning, and the public needs to be alert at all times.

John.

ROBERTS: All right. Robin, you're going to be there at number 10 Downing Street in just a couple of minutes. We'll check back in with you a little bit later on this morning when you get set up.

Right now, let's go to the scene in Haymarket. CNN's Paula Newton is on the scene there. She is our international security correspondent.

Paula, you've got some new information for us this morning?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Security sources tell CNN right now, John, that, in fact, what is so unnerving authorities here is that they've taken the vehicle out of here and are looking at what might possibly be a device that would be exploded by mobile phone. That is a completely new tactic that they are looking at that would be absolutely rattling for commuters here, for people who live in this area to understand that a car bomb might have been remotely detonated from this location.

The other thing we know, John, as well, is that the vehicle was laden with fuel and shrapnel. So you had about just over 20 gallons of fuel in the front, in the back, in the car, in the tank, as well as gas canisters. Again, absolutely laden with sharp shrapnel and metal. It was parked in front of this nightclub, which would have had maybe upwards of 1,500 people in it or coming out at any given time, depending on when people decided to leave.

It is still very confusing to this point. But as this vehicle was moved off here, we just began to get information that that is perhaps what Scotland Yard may speak to us about. And that would be a tactic that we have seen in places like Iraq, but certainly not here in London.

John.

ROBERTS: That certainly is troubling new information, the fact that there may have been a cell phone detonation, or at least triggering device hooked up to this improvised explosive device in this car.

Paula, you say that it was parked out in front of this nightclub, which I guess is the Tiger Tiger nightclub. It was ladies night there. And I image that there would have been a lot of people inside. If it weren't for the fact that the person who was piloting the car had been driving erratically, would they have any reason to have suspicion of this at all?

NEWTON: Absolutely not. But this is a very difficult place to try and park in front of. Sooner or later someone would have tried to move that vehicle along. As we saw -- we heard that a doorman actually alerted them to this.

Keep in mind, as well, John, I have been tracked through this square by security officers. We did it as an experiment. They can track every corner and crevice of this square because it is such a high-value target.

The problem is, by the time they would have had any kind of remote control detonation, it might have been too late. With all that fuel and all that shrapnel, you're talking about massive damage, as well as a continuing fireball which would have been incredibly hot and intense and very difficult for rescue workers to get to. That is the kind of alleged scenario that we are dealing with right now. Again, people pouring over that CCTV footage.

I can't tell you, probably just over there on that corner, John, there would have been dozens of cameras actually fixed on that. Not just from the security services that patrol this are here, but from the private buildings and the private property owners from that corner.

John.

ROBERTS: And as we saw in the 7/7/2005 bombings, it just took a matter of hours before they had some photos of the people who were believed to have been the perpetrators of the subway bombings. And it didn't take long after that for them to make an identification.

Paula Newton there for us in the streets of London in Haymarket.

Thanks, Paula. We'll let you keep working your sources. We'll get back to you.

Kiran.

CHETRY: Well, if you are just joining us this morning, we'll bring you up-to-date on what's going on. We have breaking news this morning out of London after the discovery of a car filled with more than 50 gallons of fuel, shrapnel, nails, as well as other small pieces of metal. It was found right in the middle of a big tourist hot spot. The theater district, Haymarket, the Piccadilly Circus tube nearby. That was closed and has sense reopened in the past few minutes.

But police were able to diffuse what they're calling a potentially viable explosive device. A lot of questions this morning as to who possibly could be behind this attempted attack. And it also comes on a day where we're just a week away from the anniversary of devastating 7/7 London bombings back in 2005 that took the lives of 52 people.

In just about nine minutes, we expect to get an update from Scotland Yard on the status of the investigation. We will, of course, bring that to you live.

But right now we bring in Robert Strang. He's the co-chair of Unified Against the Challenges of Terrorism. Also the CEO of the Investigative Management Group. Worked with the FBI, as well as a former DEA agent.

Thanks so much for being with us this morning.

ROBERT STRANG, TERROR ANALYST: Good morning.

CHETRY: So we see something like this happen over there in Britain. What does that do in terms of our security or our alert here in the U.S.?

STRANG: Well, it heightens everything that we do because, you know, the world is flat and we know that these groups do follow each other and they do have somewhat of a leadership, if you will, although it's very loose. These are radicalized groups around the world.

CHETRY: So you're ready willing to, you know, to surmise that you believe it's probably an attempted terror attack by a radical group?

STRANG: Oh, there's no question. I mean it's got all the fingerprints.

CHETRY: Not an individual?

STRANG: No. This has all the fingerprints -- if you take a look at the sophisticated bomb, already we're learning that it's done by a remote device. The thing is now is, is there other locations in the city of London? Are there other locations around the world in other countries? How many people are involved?

You know, we talk about a lot of these cases where we actually have an informant, we have an undercover, we have surveillance. It leads up to a situation like this. But in this case, we find a bomb that for some reason did not go off. We should be sitting here talking about, unfortunately, casualties this morning because this was actually in place and the government had no idea about it. That's what makes this a little bit different than the other things that we talked about, the other issues that comes up.

So when the government is kind of behind a situation like this, when we're unaware of it, we don't have the information, it creates a little bit of problem because we don't know how many other places they could be, we don't know how many people are involved, we don't know if there are other locations that are simultaneously being activated at this time.

So it's going to be kind of chaotic in Europe today. But I can assure you that our officials and all the security experts in the U.S. are going to be concerned about moving into the Fourth of July week here in the United States. That, you know, whether or not this group is just contained to the U.K. or whether or not they've got tentacles all over the world, we just don't know. But it's something that we have to be very concerned with here in the United States.

CHETRY: What you're saying is that, when we hear about, let's say, a bomb plot that was foiled, meaning that there was advanced notice and that the authorities just sort of didn't let it get any further, they moved in before anything could happen. In this situation, it appears we have a foiled attempt, as well, but you're saying, we had no idea about it until after the fact.

STRANG: That's right. We have a moving bomb in Piccadilly Circus that didn't detonate. We have one individual who escaped. So this is an active investigation. This is where the police are trying to identify this individual, trying to find out how many other people are involved. We're a little behind the eight ball here, if you will, because we have no idea who's involved here.

And that's what makes it a little bit different. Normally when something like this happens, we have an informant, we have an under cover, we have a grasp and a handle on who these people are.

CHETRY: And what do you do in these types of situations? You've got, you know, at least some of the moving parts of this seem to be that you're talking about propane canisters, you're talking about nails and shards of metal. And as we heard, things that you can buy really at any hardware store.

STRANG: Right. And we don't have all the detail yet of what exactly is involved in here. You know, one of the big concerns we have is are radiological, biological or some kind of chemical device, like a dirty bomb, where not only are you going to have an explosion, you're going to have other types of fallout. In this case, not only shrapnel, metal, it could, you know, be very dangerous to individuals within hundreds of yards of that location, but perhaps some other type of gas or something else in there. And, forensically, this hasn't been studied yet.

So this is the biggest fear. When you get this kind of device in an area with so many people, this is the worst thing that can happen.

CHETRY: And there we see it right now. You're looking at pictures of the silver Mercedes. That is the car that they believe this bomb was in. And there's some new information about whether or not it was going to be attempted to be detonated using a mobile phone. We're going to get updated in just about five minutes from Scotland Yard.

Robert Strang, I want to thank you for joining us to talk about it as well.

STRANG: My pleasure.

ROBERTS: Again, if it was to be detonated remotely by a cell phone, that would put it firmly in the same sort of sphere as all of these vehicle borne improvised explosive devices. Car bombs that we hear about and see so much of in Baghdad day in and day out.

What does it mean for us here in the United States? Jeanne Meserve, our homeland security correspondent, is on the line with us now. She's been talking with officials at DHS.

What are they saying today, Jeanne?

MESERVE: That's right, John.

Fairly minimal reaction. They are saying at this point they do not believe there is any current threat to the United States. They believe at this point that this is an isolated incident. But, of course, the investigation is ongoing.

At this point, absolutely no word on whether there'll be any adjustment to portions of the alert level or whether or not they'll be recommending additional, protective measures here. Officials are only saying that we continue to be vigilant here in the U.S.

So, at this point, so early in the investigation, so early in the game, a very early reaction from homeland officials.

John.

ROBERTS: Jeanne, what would you expect is happening in cities across America? Big cities like New York, like Washington, like Los Angeles, San Francisco, where there are high-value targets?

MESERVE: Well, I'm sure they have been watching the television, if not reading their telefax and faxes and seeing what's coming over from official authority. And they are probably just keeping a closer eye out as people patrol. Officers probably are just, you know, ratcheting up their attention to vehicles where they're placed, whether they belong there, that sort of thing. I imagine that sort of very simple precaution is already taking place in cities across the country.

John.

ROBERTS: And as you reminded us the last time you were on with us, Jeanne, in the wake of the 2005 bombings on July the 7th, of course, security was racheted up, particularly here in New York City, on the New York City subways. There were armed guards and police posted on the subways. They were, as well, examining anyone who was coming in or at least randomly examining people who were coming in with backpacks, taking all precaution just to keep any potential attackers off balance.

But as we see here, that photograph of the car there, this was before it was brought up inside the truck. You can see the truck, the flat-bed truck there, the tow truck, about to bring the car inside. They are wondering if this was an isolated incident. Was this the intended target, this nightclub that it was parked out in front of? Could it be part of a wider plot? These are all questions that they're going to be asking, as well as doing everything they can forensically to try to trace back the origin of this explosive device. CHETRY: Yes, we have the good fortune, as this story continues to unfold, to have a real expert on the area, chief international correspondent Christian Amanpour, who was in the U.S. for different reasons, but we're happy that you're joining us today.

Thanks, Christian.

You're familiar with this area, the Haymarket area. It's just about 2:00 a.m. outside of a very popular nightclub. What is that like?

CHRISTIAN AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's right in the middle of theater, restaurant and cinema area. It is in the greater Piccadilly area, which is a place where not just Lodoners go, but all sorts of British people come from out of town, lots of tourists go there because it's a real sort of magnet for night life.

And as you've been reporting and as Paula's been telling you, it's out of that nightclub there, the Tiger Tiger. Apparently the car was seen there. And this is the kind of place where you would have had a huge number of people. It would have been Thursday night. Thursday, like Friday and Saturday, are the big going out nights.

And this is something that the British have been worried about ever since 7/7. The anniversary is about to come up. And ever since last August, when there was this thwarted plot to take liquid explosives, apparently, on to transatlantic jet liners, Scotland Yard, the entire security operation in England, is monitoring at any given time, they tell us, dozens of cells, dozens of terror cells who are, you know, inclined to create this kind of mayhem. And they've got their work really cut out for them.

CHETRY: So the alarming part of this is that this caught them unaware. I mean, clearly, with the liquids plot, they had some sort of advanced notice and that is why we were able to be made aware of that. In this situation, it's after the fact. It was pointed out possibly, witnesses are saying, by a bouncer of a club who noticed this car.

AMANPOUR: Well, which is, in itself, fantastic because the truth of the matter is, the whole liquids plot was never really seen through. Nobody really knew what the extent of that was. They had some word from some people that maybe that was going on.

But here what you have, apparently, according to the report, is a car stacked with these propane canisters and shrapnel and is parked at a certain place. And just by the behavior of the human being in charge of it, the driver, he was able to tip off the security people. So it is sort of score one for vigilance, score one for the security people, private security people who are now a massive industry, you can imagine in London, not just in the United States, but all over the place. You can't move in many of these public areas without legions of security people, CCTV cameras. And if this does boil down to a vigilant bouncer, a vigilant doorman, then in a way the system worked.

CHETRY: Right. With the help of the public, for sure, not just law enforcement.

Christiane, please stick with us. We're just going to make people aware of what's going on at the half hour now, including an upcoming press conference with Scotland Yard.

ROBERTS: Right.

So just a few hours ago, we got the breaking news out of London that a car supposedly carrying an improvised explosive device was found outside of a very popular nightclub in the Haymarket district of London. This is very close to Piccadilly Circus. It's, as Christiane was saying, a major tourist area. It's also only about a half a mile away from the prime minister's official residence, about a half a mile away from the houses of parliament, also not too far away from Buckingham Palace, a very dense, very popular area of London.

As far as we understand, the car was carrying an explosive device. It also had canisters of compressed gas, possibly propane. Also about 55 gallons of fuel, and in the trunk of the car, apparently, there were nails that could have been used as shrapnel that would be dispersed as the explosive went off.

The car was found and raised suspicion for two reasons. First of all, the driver was driving someone erratically, crashed into a bin that was on the street, or on the side of the street just outside of the nightclub. Plus, it's an area where there isn't a lot of space, there isn't a lot of parking available. And any car that would be parked in that area would raise suspicions.

Bouncers outside this nightclub, Tiger Tiger, also apparently reported that they saw the driver leave the vehicle very quickly and run away. So they alerted Scotland Yard.

They came in, very quickly cordoned off the area. There was a large area that was blocked off. They closed the Piccadilly Circus tube station, the underground station, the subway station for a while.

Now as you can see in the photographs here, that car is being loaded on to a tow truck. It will go back to Scotland Yard for forensic examination. They will try and trace back the origin of the vehicle and the explosives, as well.

We should also point out that not long after this vehicle was discovered, the explosive device was rendered inert by Scotland Yard. Typically in a case like this they will -- they can fire a jet of water through a shotgun type of device at the detonating device. They call it disrupted.

Many people say that it's imploded or exploded. It's actually disrupted. They just sort of break the connection and they use water to do it because it would minimize the chance of it going off.

So that's where we are at this point, and one of the big questions as we go to Nic Robertson, who is on the scene there, is, Nic, could this have potentially been part of a larger plot? It comes a week away from the second anniversary of the London subway bombings, which we saw was a fairly extensive plot to set off simultaneous bombs in different places. Could this have been somebody trying to set this in preparation for what would have been a coordinated attack either later today or on into the weekend?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's certainly something that security officials are very, very concerned about because the terror threat level is at the second highest level here, because security officials know that there's a very real terror threat at the moment, there's the intention and the capability by terrorists to carry it out because we're coming up on that anniversary of the 7-7 bombings in London that killed 56 people, including the four suicide bombers. Because, as well, there is an ongoing trial that's reached the jury phase here of the so-called 7-21 bombers, the bombers who tried to detonate in a similar type of explosive on the London transport system two weeks after the 7-7 bombing.

Their trial is under way. So the jury phase.

Could this also be an effort to test the government of Gordon Brown? All of these indicators would point to al Qaeda being behind the plot. There's no indication at the moment that it is. This is pure speculation.

But we've seen al Qaeda in the past test political leaders, test politics in countries. The Madrid train bombings in 2004, just a few days before the election there, effectively changed the government, influenced who people voted for, for that government.

Is this an attack, an effort, not just timed to the 7-7 bombings, not just timed to the 7-21 trial that's going on right now? Is it time to test the new government of Gordon Brown? His new home secretary who is going to lead essentially the ministerial part of the investigation here, will be a very, very big test for her. She's been in this position for just one day -- John.

ROBERTS: And Nic, walk us through where this investigation is going to go from here.

ROBERTSON: Forensics. The forensic component will perhaps provide police with their biggest lead over who was responsible.

They will, of course, have a huge amount of closed circuit camera video from this area here. They will were very likely be able to track this vehicle by looking sequentially in time at the previous movements of the vehicle, perhaps as it drove into the city. Where did it come from, where did they first pick it up?

So they will perhaps be able to tell something about where the vehicle came from. That may help narrow down the investigation.

They will perhaps have been able to pick up a photographic quality image from that CCTV to identify the man seen running from the vehicle. A very risky thing to do for a would-be bomber in this situation, knowing that there's every opportunity to be picked up on security cameras, surveillance cameras. But it's likely the forensics here examining exactly what the trigger mechanism was. We do understand from a source that there were mobile phones found in the vehicle. Were the mobile phones the intended trigger mechanism?

The very fact that the driver of the vehicle ran away, an indication there that it's not a suicide type attack, at leas. Will that provide information? Who rented, who bought those mobile phones? Who is responsible for those telephone numbers? When did they get them?

All these sorts of clues will help lead the police to the people who were behind this attack, as well as the constituent parts of the bomb, what type of fuel was being used. Is it simple -- simple gas you can buy at a pump anywhere across the country, or is it something more complex?

Even the details about the shrapnel used, we've heard about the possibility of nails being in the trunk. Where were they purchased? All these sorts of details.

We've seen police with the ongoing and concluded terror trials in Britain. We've seen them detail painstakingly where they've gone and the lengths they've gone to track down where each of these component parts of the bombers come from. And in many cases, they've been able to show during the trials of some of the suspects of these terror attacks, in these planned terror attacks, they've been able to show them from closed circuit cameras going into stores, buying, for instance, some of the chemical constituents of the bombs that have been built.

So all of this a very, very long, painstaking process for the police. But most likely, the closed circuit cameras providing a good deal of information, but it will be the forensics that will perhaps lead the police most quickly, and perhaps those mobile phones as well most quickly to the people behind this -- John.

ROBERTS: Nic Robertson, thanks. Nic, we'll get back to you.

Of course there are thousands upon thousands of closed circuit television cameras in the city of London. In fact, it's estimated that the average person walking around downtown London during the course of a day would be photographed on camera some 200 to 300 times. So quite possible that they've got a sequential, some sequential evidence as to the path of this vehicle, where it came from, and from that they may be able to surmise potentially where it was headed.

And as Nic Robertson said, no indication at this point that it was a suicide bomber because the person fled. Unless, of course, that person lost their nerve.

They were driving erratically and crashed into some sort of a bin just outside of this nightclub. Was it a suicide attack that the person couldn't carry through? Was it supposed to be an attack where they would leave the vehicle? These are all questions that Scotland Yard will be asking -- Kiran CHETRY: So, yes, if you are just joining us this morning, we want to let you know again that Scotland Yard is looking into this discovery this morning, a car bomb in a very, very popular area, Haymarket area of London.

They're going to be updating us in just a couple of moments. Now we're awaiting a news conference with the latest information.

Meantime, this definitely caught a lot of people in the area off guard. People were just trying to either head to work or were leaving the scene after -- after enjoying a night out. We have a chance to hear from two young women who actually were showing up for work when they found themselves in the middle of this police investigation.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) about 9:15 and it's all cordoned off. I had come up Shasry (ph) Avenue, cordoned off up there. The police tell me it will probably be closed until about 1:00 or so if I'm getting to work. Just waiting to see what happens next, really.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got here about 8:00. Everything was shut off. Just couldn't get to the office. And nobody told us anything.

And then as it started to come through the news, relatives saying, oh, there's a bomb. So just checking that we were OK.

And they said that apparently some car had been driven into a ballard (ph) and they hadn't detonated. It was either aiming for gas canisters or had explosive devices in the back of it. And (INAUDIBLE) the area until it's safe and clear. But our office is right in the middle of it. So we know we just have to wait until we can -- told we can go in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we can go in.

I think it's going to be quite soon because we actually want to get to work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. We've got too much to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Well, they don't necessarily seem quite scared about the situation, but providing a little bit of local color as to what was going on at the time. Maybe perhaps it is too soon to talk about who may be behind this.

But Christiane Amanpour, you have reported extensively about the threat of homegrown terror, the enemy within some of your pieces, about the rise of radical Islam in Britain.

AMANPOUR: I think it's important, because as we're talking about the potential size of a bomb, what could have happened, what might have happened, we really don't know the full facts now. And it reminds me very, very much of what happened 7-7 two years ago.

Just like these young girls who pitch up to go to work and are not able to and don't know what's happening, I remember very, very vividly how we also didn't know what had happened on the underground systems two years ago. There were techs going around saying there's been a massive pour outage. There was also some speculation about what had happened, and it wasn't for quite a while that it was obvious that this was an underground series of explosions.

And I think right now we're desperate to hear from Scotland Yard so that we can figure out exactly what did just happen overnight in London and the extent of it. But the fact is that -- and those CCTV cameras proved it two years ago -- the people who did take part in the 7-7 attack were homegrown terrorists, so to speak.

It was the first time Britain had woken up and found that in the heart of their own city, their own culture. People had just picked up and were ready to and did kill their own people. And this is something that Scotland Yard has been looking at for a long time since, and it's caused quite a lot of friction, because obviously the majority of the Muslim population in England is assimilated, is moderate, is peaceful, has none of these kinds of tendencies.

But what they found was that this cell of four people who blew themselves up on the trains were politically motivated, they did it in the context of the war in Iraq and their much later released so-called suicide videos, their final will and testament, which al Qaeda released later, had them talking about the Iraq war. And if you remember, "You do this to us and now we're doing it to you." And "Until you stop killing our Muslim brothers, we will not stop."

And this is something that's of deep concern to the British law enforcement, obviously to society at large. How does one intercede and stop that kind of -- that kind of plotting? And they have kept their eyes on several cells, and any number of them are under surveillance right now.

CHETRY: What was eventually discovered about the four suicide bombers in 2005? Were they part of a radicalized mosque, were they part of a larger group where there would have been signs? Or were they pretty much individuals who shared the same ideology?

AMANPOUR: Well, it was sort of a roller coaster of discovery, really.

One of them had been known for having been a very upstanding community member. There was talk that he had actually been decorated for some of his community work up there in northern England.

It appears that this was an isolated cell. The thing that Scotland Yard hasn't been able to tell us and doesn't really know yet and is working on is, are all of these linked, are they all related? Or are they individual cells which operate based on their own -- their own timetable and their own political motivation?

The truth is, it's low-tech. It's not high-tech. And it's not that difficult to do.

The difference in England, I think, with a lot of countries is that there is a lot of surveillance. We've been talking about the CCTV cameras. And, of course, in England, they've had so many years of this counterinsurgency, if you like -- some call it counterterrorism -- counterinsurgency, because England has been bombed many times during the IRA troubles. That's gone away. And now this is -- this is the new threat.

ROBERTS: Yet at the same time, if we are to believe that this was a vehicle-born improvised explosive device, and the driver of the car did have nefarious intentions, it's something that got through the security net. The police had no idea about this until the bouncers outside of this club called them and they came and they found it.

But you're absolutely right, that it is important to go slow about all of the aspects of this. We have had confirmation that there were gas canisters and fuel inside the vehicle. Scotland Yard refusing to comment, though, according to a BBC report, on whether there were nails in the trunk. And they also quoted a Westminster source from parliament who suggested this was a "small device".

So we're hearing, you know, varying and very descriptions of what was going on today.

AMANPOUR: And that is generally the sort of MO at the beginning of these kinds of things. Something happens. Obviously, we all jump on it because it's important, because terrorism is a legitimate threat and because we've been there before. It happened before.

So the crucial, I think, is to wait eventually for Scotland Yard to tell us exactly what it is. But this business of the man who was driving erratically and then running away, I find that really very interesting psychologically, and it will be very interesting to hear about that.

You know, in Iraq and other places where vehicle-born suicide bombs are launched with deadly precision, many, many times you know in the aftermath that actually the drivers have been chained to the wheel. They're not allowed -- they can't move, even if they wanted to. And this is very interesting, if, in fact, it turns out that it was something similar to that.

ROBERTS: Does it suggest to you someone who was planting the vehicle and running away as quickly as possible to detonate it remotely, or could it have been someone who lost their nerve, couldn't carry out the assignment?

AMANPOUR: Probably the latter. Probably the latter, although this is now complete speculation.

But you know, the way these vehicle bombs work, or these roadside bombs in Iraq, it's generally not the same person who is driving who triggers it. You know, they have -- it's all very timed. They do it with precision. It's crude, but they still have a certain precision about it. And they wait for their target, usually an American vehicle to come by, and they're out somewhere, maybe hundreds of meters away...

ROBERTS: We've actually seen videotape of this.

AMANPOUR: Exactly.

CHETRY: And in this situation, there's the third possibly that he drove it into these canisters, at least according to the bouncer/doorman who was the one witness who was talking about this, and it just didn't work. It was a botched -- we had that situation happen on the 21st of July in 2005, where there was yet another attempt of a terror attack, only this time, the explosive devices did not go off.

AMANPOUR: That's true. I remember two weeks exactly the 21st of July, right after 7-7. There was almost an identical would-be copycat attack, and you're right, it didn't go off.

CHETRY: You know what's going on? There's a 90,000-seat stadium, Wembley Stadium, where they're having this huge tribute concert for the late Princess Diana. This is going to be taking place on Sunday. Any heightened concerns or things they may be doing differently in light of this?

AMANPOUR: Well, I would assume there is probably a great deal of heightened security. This concert has been opening planned for many months now.

It's her two sons, William and Harry, who have decided that they want to do something to remember her in the way she was. It's now nearly 10 years since she was killed, and this has been talked about and prepared almost publicly.

I mean, you know, the nuts and bolts have been open to the public for a long, long time. But -- and this is a new stadium. It's newly built, it's the new sort of the centerpiece of Britain's sports effort and its Olympic effort for 2012. And I'm sure there's going to be a huge amount of security.

And now, you can -- you know, in many of these public places, you can barely move for checks. Whether they be, you know, pat-downs, whether they just be people looking at what you have in your bag, whether they be x-ray machines. There's a huge amount of security that is deployed in many of these places.

CHETRY: So, in some ways, the terrorists have been able to change our lives. I mean, the talk of the liquid bans, you know what it's like to fly these days. You just got in on a flight. So in many ways...

AMANPOUR: Without a doubt.

CHETRY: ... we felt terrorism in our daily lives, even though not in the form of violence, but in the form of how we all live.

ROBERTS: But again, this one got through the security net.

Hey, let's go back to London and bring in our security expert, Will Geddes. He's in our London bureau.

Will, you probably heard Paula Newton report just a little while ago from the scene there in Haymarket that cell phones were found inside the car, suggesting that perhaps this was set up to be a remotely-detonated device.

Do you have any more information on that?

WILL GEDDES, SECURITY EXPERT: Yes. It's very difficult to say.

Again, this information hopefully is going to come out on this briefing, which will follow very, very shortly. However, again, whatever those phones actually represent, we've seen -- or I've certainly seen in Iraq myself mobile phone, or certainly the mobile phone casings, being used certainly for detonators. And again, we saw a similar incident of this with the Madrid bombings.

So, there is the possibly this could have been used as a detonator. Equally, it could have been the individual's cell phone. Whichever, it's going to be very much intelligence-rich in the findings.

ROBERTS: Any idea when we're going to hear from Scotland Yard on this?

GEDDES: Again, Scotland Yard do things in their own sweet time. And when they're ready and they're prepared and they've got all the information that they need, that is going to be useful not only in reassuring the general public that they have got the situation in hand, but secondly, that that they can get the general public to assist them -- because we mustn't forget that the general public play a very, very critical part in the whole solution.

ROBERTS: Hey, Will, we're fortunate to have Christiane Amanpour in the city with us today. She was here on an unrelated matter. She's coming to join us this morning. She would like to jump in here and talk to you a little bit.

AMANPOUR: Will, just a question on the types of cells that are being monitored. Scotland Yard tells us without generally specific numbers that there are any number, a dozen, sometimes scores of cells, who are being monitored.

Give us an idea of the extent of what's happening in a homegrown fashion, or the threat.

GEDDES: OK. I think what we're seeing at the moment, Christiane, is very similar to what is being used in domestic U.S. by the FBI, starting with the recent JFK plot.

We heard about infiltrations and the FBI getting themselves -- obviously infiltrating into particular cells. The same techniques are being used over here as much as possibly can be used.

Again, infiltrations are always going to be fraught with problems, and they require a particularly sort of long and extended period of time to gain the trust of individuals. But there are a variety of different strands that are being used.

One of the hardest problems that we're having ultimately is in the fact that the intelligence agencies have to use a number of different things to try and verify exactly what is going on in these groups. But these groups are keeping themselves very insular. And I think one of the biggest problems we've got is that not many of these groups are necessarily communicating it across to each other for that exact reason.

ROBERTS: Hey, Will, apparently Scotland Yard getting ready for a press conference. They're just checking in their equipment right now. It's supposed to happen in a few minutes' time.

Is there any more information on what the content of the gas canisters in the vehicle was? Was it propane or some other flammable gas, or was it, as we've seen in some of these car bomb attacks in Baghdad, a toxic gas, such as chlorine?

GEDDES: Well, from the sources that have told me -- and again, hopefully this will be confirmed in the conference coming up shortly -- from what I've been told, it is propane. And I think what this also tells us is not only the accessibility to this material to create a device, because certainly all the component parts would make up what we believe to be a fertilizer bomb, are all being flagged by various different outlets that would provide those materials.

Propane is very easy and very accessible, and yet it still achieves the ultimate objective, which would be to disperse the materials around it. In this case, we believe it to be nails.

ROBERTS: All right. And we hope to hear about that very soon.

Will, thanks. Stay with us in the London bureau. We'll get back to you as we get more developments here in this case.

CHETRY: So we want to bring people up to date.

If you're just joining us right now, we're following the latest developments on what police suspect in London to be a car bomb. It did not detonate, but there are witnesses, including a bouncer at a nightclub.

This is in the Haymarket area outside of the popular Tiger Tiger nightclub, reporting around 2:00 a.m. Britain time seeing a car, a silver Mercedes -- it's the one that you see right there being loaded into that flatbed for investigation -- this was the vehicle that this bouncer reported seeing driving erratically and then crash into a garbage can. A driver then running from the scene.

Later, of course, police were called in. What they found, 52- plus gallons of fuel, as well as located in propane canisters, small nails, and there have been some reports of shards of metal, which we are waiting for Scotland Yard to confirm for us.

But right now, they are certainly being vigilant in light of this news which most likely caught them by surprise. They are conducting security spot checks right now on petrol gas and chemical tankers, as well as cement mixers and other vehicles in the area. And they're also monitoring now key routes into London amid concerns that terrorists may try to copy the tactics that have been used, as John said, very effectively by insurgents in Iraq.

ROBERTS: And at the same time, they're going to be sort of doing the backtrack on this, as well, checking that closed circuit security video to see where this vehicle came from, where it entered London, the streets it took to get to where it finally was. They'll be tracing back the vehicle itself.

Would the car have been stolen, could somebody have made the silly mistake of actually using their own vehicle, perhaps renting that car? Trying to trace back, as well, the signature of the explosive device inside the car.

So we're waiting to hear from Scotland Yard to announce its findings.

CHETRY: Yes. There we have a shot to the left of your screen of Scotland Yard inside, where people are eagerly awaiting the press conference. We see people walking out. We're expecting to hear from Peter Clarke of Scotland Yard, so let's listen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Peter Clarke, deputy assistant commissioner of counterterrorism command, will make a short statement. After that, he will take a few questions from the floor, but obviously we would appreciate (INAUDIBLE). So we have to keep this quite short.

Thank you very much -- Peter.

PETER CLARKE, DEP. ASST. COMM., SCOTLAND YARD: Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen.

At about 1:00 this morning, a London ambulance service crew was called to the Tiger Tiger nightclub in the Haymarket -- that's Piccadilly London, West One (ph) -- to treat a person who had been taken ill. While still there, they noticed a Mercedes car that was parked outside the club in the Haymarket, and they also noticed that there appeared to be smoke inside the vehicle.

The explosives officers went to the scene and examined the car. In the car, they found significant quantities of petrol, together with a number of gas cylinders. And I cannot at this stage tell you exactly how much petrol because we have not yet had a chance to measure it precisely. But what I can tell you is that it was in several large containers. There are also a large number of nails in the vehicle.

The explosives officers disabled a potential means of detonation of the gas and fuel in the vehicle.

I think it would be right at this stage for me to pay tribute to the courage and skill of the explosives officers who manually disabled the device. In so doing, not only did their actions prevent injury and damage to property, but also, they've given us opportunities to gather a great deal of forensic and other evidence from the vehicle.

As always in these cases, the safety of the public was paramount, the area around the vehicle was cornered off. The vehicle has now, of course, been taken away for detailed forensic examination which will, of course, take some time.

We are also gathering CCTV evidence and have started a full investigation into this incident. It is too early to be clear. And indeed, I would suggest it's even too early to speculate as to who might be responsible. And we are keeping an entirely open mind.

Scientific analysis will tell us what damage or injury could have been caused by this device. However, even at this stage, it is obvious that if the device had detonated, there could have been significant injury or loss of life.

The vehicle was parked in one of the busiest parts of central London in the early hours of Friday morning when many, many people were leaving nightclubs and other places after an evening out. At this stage, we would appeal to any members of the public who were in the area of the Haymarket and may have seen anything suspicious or unusual to contact us on the confidential anti-terrorist hotline.

The time frame we are interested in is not just the early hours of this morning, but throughout yesterday evening, the period leading up to the time when this vehicle was discovered. The telephone number of the confidential hotline is 0-800-789-321. And I shall repeat that number. That's 0-800-789-321.

The investigation is being conducted by the Metropolitan Police Counterterrorism Command. We will, of course, give you more information as and when we can.

I am sure, I am absolutely sure that we will need the help of the public in conducting this investigation. And I would like to offer the reassurance that we are doing absolutely everything in our power to keep the public safe.

As I've said before, the threat from terrorism is real, it is here, and it is enduring. Life must go on, but we must all stay alert to the threat we face as we go about our daily lives.

Thank you. I'll take some questions now.

Could you please identify yourself and where you're from, please? Thank you.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE). Have you any idea at this stage how many suspects might be involved in delivering the car to where it was found?

CLARKE: No, it's far too early to say how many suspects were involved in this. As I've said, we are, of course, gathering the huge amount of CCTV material that will be available to us in that part of London. And when we can analyze it, we'll be in a better position to answer that question. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jeff (ph).

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE). Do you know what is in the cylinders? Is it the gas (INAUDIBLE)?

CLARKE: Again, it's too early to say what's in the cylinders. Obviously, we know what is written on the outside of the cylinders, but it's -- though again, what we need to do is to wait until it's been examined at the laboratory. And then, of course, there will be analysis and we'll be able to say exactly what it is that's in the cylinders.

QUESTION: How big were the cylinders? Might they have been kilogram sizes?

CLARKE: Yes, they were cylinders of varying sizes, is all I'll say at the moment. Until we've had the proper examination at the laboratory, I don't want to speculate as to what is in them or the exact sizes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Question there.

QUESTION: Gavin Hewitt (ph), BBC.

Do you presume that the Tiger Tiger nightclub was actually a target, or do you think the car had been abandon there?

CLARKE: Well, as always on these occasions, I want to stick to the facts.

The facts that I know are that the car was parked there. So until the investigation goes further, it will be speculation to say that the nightclub is the target. It's the simple fact that that's where the vehicle was parked.

Now, of course we have seen in previous cases nightclubs having been mentioned by terrorists as potential targets. But I would not presume to say that that, therefore, means that the nightclub was the target on this occasion.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) who talked about the car being driven erratically, crashing into things, and somebody running away would suggest perhaps a botched suicide car bomb attempt one line of your investigation?

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