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A pair of carbombs that did not explode was the Story of the Day. All three networks led with their London correspondent describing the two Mercedes automobiles--one found emitting gasoline fumes near Piccadilly Circus after midnight; a second spotted in the afternoon because it smelled of gasoline after being ticketed and towed to a lot near Hyde Park. Then all three followed up with backgrounders from this country on the possible link with convicted terrorist plotter Dhiren Barot.

"Terror returns to the streets of London," declared ABC's Jim Sciutto--by which, of course, he meant the contrary. Terror had not returned. Reporters disagreed about why the plot failed. Was it foiled or was it bungled? NBC's Ned Colt said that his unidentified sources told him that by "extraordinary good luck" the bombers messed up: "Someone had called the cell phone twice but it failed to trigger the explosives." CBS' Richard Roth told a version that "vigilance" prevented the bomb as a "passing ambulance crew saw smoke or vapor" and called police. ABC's Sciutto described the bomb squad moving in: "First a robot, then an officer who--at enormous risk to his own life, said British officials--carefully defused the device."

Barot is in prison in Britain for a failed plan to make limousine bombs, including one that he hoped would demolish the Citicorp skyscraper in New York City. He wrote a "bombmaking how-to manual, a sort of Terrorism for Dummies, detailing the effectiveness of a gasoline bomb," reported CBS' Bob Orr. Sure enough the ingredients found in the unexploded cars--gasoline, propane, nails, cell phone--were the same as those Barot had listed. NBC's Lisa Myers said it had "strong similarities" to Barot's foiled 2004 plot in London. On ABC, Brian Ross' unidentified official British sources told him that surveillance videotape from CCTV cameras identified the driver of the Mercedes as "one of Barot's associates who was initially arrested three years ago but released for lack of evidence." In the past six years, ABC's Nick Watt (subscription required) explained, the number of CCTV cameras in Britain has increased fivefold to 5m: "Londoners are among the most watched people on Earth, caught on camera around 300 times a day."

ABC's Ross concluded his report by reminding us of the footage he showed last week of a "graduation ceremony for suicide bombers" held in Pakistan. Back then Ross identified the Taliban as the organizers of the ceremony. Now, without explanation, he has changed that to al-Qaeda. Ross also did not explain what the Pakistani ceremony had to do with these two London cars. As CBS' in-house counterterrorism expert John Brennan pointed out to anchor Katie Couric: "This is not a suicide attack. It was going to be remotely detonated."

Andrew Tyndall 6/30/07 9:58:50 pm

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