USA Today On Deadline reports:
As London reels from this morning's discovery of a car bomb in the theater district, CNN is quoting anonymous police and security sources who say similar components were found in a vehicle that parking enforcement towed from Trafalgar Square to an underground parking garage near Hyde Park.
ITN says officials won't confirm reports that explosives were found in the second car. But CNN quotes "a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the London investigation" saying "the car was linked to the vehicle outside the club, and that some materials found inside the car were very similar to explosive materials found in the car near Piccadilly Circus."
Sky News reports that the second vehicle, described as a blue hybrid Mercedes, was parked illegally on the West End and towed to the Park Lane impound lot early this morning. "Staff at the pound became suspicious and alerted police because they said 'it smelled of gas,'" the network says. "Forensic officers and bomb disposal teams spent several hours examining the car, however Park Lane has now re-opened."
An international manhunt is underway, with counter-terrorism investigators said to looking for the person who seen leaving the first vehicle outside a nightclub early this morning.
Update at 3:30 p.m. ET: CBS News focused this afternoon on reports that someone posted information about a bombing in London to the Internet long before police found the car near Piccadilly Circus. "Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed," the person wrote Thursday night on a jihadist forum, according to the network.
ABC News has an urgent alert in bright red letters splashed across the top of its website: SEVERAL EXPLOSIONS WERE PLANNED USING MULTIPLE VEHICLES BY ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS IN LONDON BOMB PLOT, U.S. AND BRITISH OFFICIALS TELL ABC NEWS.
That may be true, but so far there's little evidence in the network's story to back up the claims in its headline. Here's the first sentence: "British and U.S. officials have become increasingly convinced that two cars found in London and laden with explosives are part of a 'terror plot involving Islamic extremists,' according to ABC News's Brian Ross."
That's the only part of the story that addresses the claims in the headline and the breaking-news alert.
Judging by the chatter on the all-news channels, many experts believe that Islamic extremists were in fact responsible for the car bomb that police discovered early this morning outside a London nightclub. But we have yet to see any confirmation of these claims from named sources, and some reports have been careful to note the possibility that the car bomb was tied to criminals instead of terrorists.
As for the second vehicle, there are conflicting reports as to whether or not it contained bomb-related materials. Several major news organizations are quoting unidentified officials who say the car contained explosives or bomb-making components. But Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., tells MSNBC that his briefings suggest that further investigation showed that the vehicle wasn't a threat.
Update at 3:57 p.m. ET: British police just held a very short press conference during which they confirmed that the two cars were linked. "This second vehicle has been examined ... the vehicle was found to contain very similar materials to those that had been found in the first car in Haymarket earlier today," Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke says. "There was a considerable amount of fuel and gas canisters. As in the first vehicle, there was also a substantial quantity of nails."
Clarke, head of the counter-terror squad, says the bomb squad disabled both devices.
"These vehicles are clearly linked," he says. Clarke didn't take any questions.
