LONDON, 22 July 2005 — Two weeks to the day after the London bombings on July 7, fear and panic returned to the streets of London yesterday afternoon as police confirmed four “serious” incidents involving minor conventional explosions at Shepard’s Bush, Warren Street and the Oval stations and on a No 26 bus in Hackney Road Shoreditch. London was immediately put on an extreme alert as the city’s transport system was once again brought to the brink of disruption and chaos.

The Warren Street incident took place at about 12.45 p.m. and soon afterward both the Oval and Shepard’s Bush stations were evacuated. The busy Shepard’s Bush Green a few hundred yards from the BBC Television Center at White City was also cordoned off creating serious traffic congestion. One eyewitness at Warren Street talked about “an English-looking guy with a rucksack which exploded like a firework, resulting in a burning rubber smell.” There are unconfirmed reports of rucksacks being left at the other two stations, and potential bombers running from the scenes.

Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair stressed that what happened in London yesterday were “clearly very serious incidents. The situation is fully under control; confirmed and confined. There is no evidence of chemical or biological agents used. The indications are that these were conventional explosions. Now is the time for people moving into London coping with this incident.”

Sir Ian said it was clear the devices had been intended to kill, but some appeared not to have gone off properly and only one person had been reported injured.

Eyewitnesses confirmed hearing loud bangs and seeing smoke which smelled like burning tires at the three stations, with some panic ensuing as commuters tried to evacuate the Victoria Line station. The lone injury resulted from the blast at Warren Street. Armed police also chased a man described as 6 feet 2 inches tall running into the nearby University College Hospital (UCH) “with wires protruding from the top of his clothes.” The hospital has been cordoned off.

In another dramatic incident, another man was arrested by armed police with machine guns primed on the suspect and ready for use only a few yards from the gates of Downing Street in Whitehall. He was marched off to a waiting car, although he may have been an innocent bystander who in the heat of the moment refused to follow police instructions and who happened to be in a very sensitive location outside the Defense Ministry and a few yards from the gates of Downing Street.

The incidents brought chaos to London’s transport services with the affected stations cordoned off and several other lines on the Underground suspended.

Prime Minister Tony Blair meeting with his Australian counterpart John Howard had to interrupt proceedings to chair an emergency meeting of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat also known as COBRA, which included Sir Ian, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Defense Secretary John Reid and Home Secretary Charles Clarke.

Speaking to reporters at Downing Street, Blair said: “We can’t minimize incidents such as these. We know why they are done. They are done to scare people and to worry them. Fortunately there have not been any casualties. We must react calmly. We must continue with our business as normal. We must get the rest of the transport system back on track as far as possible.

“It is too early to speculate who were responsible for these incidents. It is important we react calmly and get on with our lives. It is obvious that people are concerned. But we must allow the police to get on with their job.”

Howard assured the support of the Australian people, who shared common values with the British. “The scourge of terrorism, “he said, “is one which we all face. Terrorism is the enemy of all free people. It is a perverted ideology for evil intent and purpose.”

Hours after the explosions, President George W. Bush did not directly mention the bombings but repeated during a trade speech that the United States would not be frightened by acts of terrorism.

“They have the desire to use their terrorist techniques to frighten us,” Bush said in the speech on a major US-Central American trade pact. “They understand when they kill in cold blood it ends up on our TV screens. And they’re trying to shake our will.” “They don’t understand our country though. They don’t understand that when it comes to the defense of universal freedoms, this country won’t be frightened,” he added.

Homeland Security officials said the department was closely monitoring the events in London and noted that the US mass transit system was already at a heightened state of alert after the first wave of bombings in central London.

Police sources stress that the incidents were detonators attached to dummy nail bombs exploding, hence the smoke and the stench of burning rubber. The damage to the bus was confined to the windows shattered on the upper deck. According to London Transport, there was no structural damage to the trains as a result of the incidents.

Another theory is that these were failed explosions by the same cell that planned the horrific July 7 attacks.