Brentford - Target for Terror!
The recent terrorist attacks in London reminded me that Brentford was the target of a failed terrorist attack back in March 2001 - long before the Iraq invasion and even before 9/11!I remember hearing about the attempt on R4 news but was never able to find out details until I recently had the bright idea of doing an internet search and up popped a 2001 Daily Telegraph article which gave the following account:"Algerians linked to bin Laden's al-Qaeda movement planned to explode a bomb on a flyover on the M4 in west London at peak rush hour, potentially killing hundreds of motorists and their passengers. Intelligence suggests that the men were linked to GIA, the Algerian Islamic extremist organisation.They intended to put a bomb on the bridge at Great West Road, Brentford, on the M4 in the early hours of March 2 this year. Hidden in tarpaulin, the device was to have exploded during the morning rush hour, spreading chaos throughout the capital.At 1.15am on March 2, uniformed police officers arrested two men who were seen abseiling down the motorway flyover by passing motorists, who suspected that they were writing graffiti.Bomb disposal experts went to the scene and the M4 was closed at 1.30am between Chiswick and Heathrow. A section of the A4 was also sealed off but both roads were reopened two hours later. Officers searched the stretch of the M4 but found nothing.The two men, in their mid-thirties, were arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act as they were walking away from the bridge and were questioned before being released.The men claimed that they were members of an abseiling club, and although the police were suspicious, they had no evidence with which to charge the men.It has emerged that another six men were on their way to the bridge with an explosive device. Police are convinced that the men were involved in a terrorist act.The two men who were arrested have fled their original addresses and cannot be traced. Two of the other men were on the list of suspects wanted for questioning that the FBI sent to Scotland Yard three weeks ago. The men all lived at addresses in north and east London."Does anyone else have further details or know if the incident was ever covered in the local papers? (I couldn't find anything about it in them at the time.)
MP Parry ● 7206d4 Comments