Dramatic shots immediately after London bombing

(3 Aug 2001) A suspected car bomb has exploded near a London Underground station, showering bystanders with glass and injuring at least six people.
Witnesses said the blast went off just before midnight on Thursday near Ealing Broadway station in west London and reported seeing smoldering chunks of a destroyed car at the scene of the explosion.
An amateur cameraman, who was filming a woman singing karaoke in a bar, captured dramatic pictures of the bomb blast.
A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said police believed the explosion was caused by a car bomb.
She wouldn't say whether police had received a warning, though witnesses reported seeing a large number of police in the area just before the blast.
Six people - five men and one woman - were taken to nearby Ealing Hospital, a spokeswoman said.
Two had head injuries and two were "walking wounded," but none of the injuries was believed to be life-threatening, she added.
One person originally counted among the injured came from an unrelated incident, the hospital said.
The London Fire Brigade said it received reports of a blast near the station just after midnight (2300 GMT).
Several witnesses reported seeing "walking wounded" near the scene.
U-K Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is on a visit to Mexico, had been informed of the explosion and was being kept updated, a spokesman for his office said.
British Transport Police said the explosion occurred 100 metres (yards) from the busy subway and rail station, in a street lined with shops, pubs and
restaurants.
The area was cordoned off and ambulances and fire engines stood by as police escorted motorists and pedestrians away from the scene.
A year ago, police safely detonated a bomb, believed to have been planted by a dissident Irish group, outside the same station.
The latest blast came a day after Britain published new commitments on scaling back its military presence in Northern Ireland, part of a package designed to spur Irish Republican Army disarmament.
The I-R-A is on ceasefire, but the peace process is opposed by a dissident group, the so-called Real I-R-A.
It has been blamed for a series of explosions in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain, including a rocket-propelled grenade attack on the headquarters of the M-I-6 secret intelligence service, a taxi bomb outside the studios of the British Broadcasting Corporation and the bombing of Hammersmith Bridge in west London.
On Wednesday, soldiers defused a 45-lb (20kg) car bomb outside Belfast International Airport, believed to have been planted by the Real I-R-A.
In May, British anti-terrorist police warned that the group was planning a major attack on the mainland.
The group's most notorious act was a 1998 car bombing in the town of Omagh, Northern Ireland, that killed 29 people and wounded more than 300.


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