Packages containing explosives found at Waterloo, Heathrow & London City Airport
Arieb Malik, The Norwood School
Counter-terror police are analsying packages that were housing explosives found at three major locations within London, Waterloo, Heathrow & London City Airport.
These explosives were said to be found in A4 postal bags by the Metropolitan police. The Counter Terrorism team working on this issue are treating this incident to be linked and are keeping an open mind about the intention. The Irish police are helping the Metropolitan police as the explosives found at Waterloo & Heathrow carried Republic of Ireland stamps. In the post room at Waterloo station, the second explosive was found and Scotland Yard have said “the packages – all A4-sized white postal bags containing yellow Jiffy bags – have been assessed by specialist officers to be small improvised explosive devices, these devices, at this early stage of the investigation, appear capable of igniting an initially small fire when they are opened.”
A Heathrow spokeswoman said that the airport would gladly assist the police with the on-going investigation into the “criminal act”.
In the United Kingdom, working explosive devices being sent through method of mail / letter bombs is very rare, fortunately the packages appear to be designed to trigger a very small fire, on the second explosive, it caught fire melting off part of its own plastic envelope. The other two packages weren’t opened. Nowadays, there is a lot of concern about the incidents occurring for them to be have caught attention by those of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command.
These devices don’t seem to be able to cause serious injuries, having probably have been intended to have a nuisance effect whilst also generating publicity, if this is what they were hoping for, they have certainly done so. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling persuaded people to report “anything suspicious” to the police, while the Mayor of London (Sadiq Khan) commented, “our thanks go to the police, security, transport staff and all involved for their swift actions to keep our city safe.”
Arieb Malik, The Norwood School
