Letter bombings in the UK

[faceless]

U.K. Driving License Center Attacked With Letter Bomb
By Nick Allen

Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- A letter bomb exploded and injured three people at the U.K.'s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the third such explosion in three days at organizations linked to motoring. A total of seven explosive devices have been received in the mail in the last three weeks in the U.K., Association of Chief Police Officers spokeswoman Eve Shuttleworth said in a telephone interview. The organization issued a warning to companies to be vigilant. 'The packages received so far have caused minor injuries but could have been more serious,'' Anton Setchell, ACPO's national coordinator for domestic extremism, said in an e-mailed statement. ``I am appealing for companies, organizations and individuals to take extra care when handling mail.''

In the explosion at the DVLA in Swansea, south Wales, one woman suffered minor burns and two women received hearing-related injuries, South Wales police spokeswoman Ceri Hughes said in an e-mailed statement."It was in this morning's mail and police and fire staff are on the scene,'' DVLA spokesman Darren Wheately said in a phone interview.

A letter bomb exploded at the offices of Vantis Plc in Wokingham in the central English county of Berkshire yesterday, injuring two people. Vantis provides accounting services to a company operating speed cameras, according to U.K. media reports. The day before, a letter bomb went off in London at the offices of Capita Group Plc, the company which operates the capital's traffic-charging system. Another letter bomb exploded at a private address in Folkestone, Kent, on Feb. 3, injuring a 53-year-old man who lives there, Kent Police spokeswoman Hannah Alland said in a telephone interview. ``Detectives will examine any similarities between the incidents. At this stage we can't say whether any of them are linked,'' she said. Police gave no details of the victim's background.

Three explosive devices were sent to companies in Oxfordshire and Birmingham almost three weeks ago, Thames Valley Police said in a statement posted on its Web site Jan. 19. Each contained a crude, firework-type explosive in an A5 Jiffy bag. A 40-year-old woman suffered a minor injury in one of the incidents. Each package had a similar return address and the name of a convicted animal rights extremist, Barry Horne, was written on the back of one envelope. Horne died in prison following a hunger strike in 2001. Detectives have linked those three incidents and animal rights extremism was a ``priority line of inquiry,'' according to the Thames Valley statement.

All three companies targeted were involved in providing forensic services to the police and criminal justice system. One of the companies was identified by Thames Valley Police as Orchid Cellmark, which has premises in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and provides DNA analysis services to the police. "We are shocked to have been targeted in this way,'' Orchid Cellmark said in a Jan. 19 statement posted on the police department's Web site. "We have provided forensic DNA services to the police for 20 years and this is the first time we have experienced anything of this nature.''

A U.K. militant group, Motorists Against Detection, which says it has destroyed 1,000 speed cameras in the last seven years, denied any involvement in the attacks. The group's spokesman, who is known only as Captain Gatso, said in a telephone interview that anti-terrorist police had been to see him after the London bombing two days ago, adding that he condemned the attacks. Gatso is a brand of speed camera.

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I'm surprised to hear that there were 3 other packages sent a few weeks ago - why weren't the public informed before now?

It sounds to me like someone is trying to pass the blame onto the animal-rights activists - why would an animal campaigner attack these companies in particular when all they are involved in is dealing with speeding tickets etc?

[faceless]

here's a picture of the guy who was arrested and charged with these bombings today... it was taken when he was at school when he was 16. Makes me wonder how he managed to get a bomb made!

[janbo1960]

is there an Al Qaeda link???