Posted on 05/05/2005 6:08:23 AM PDT by Calpernia
Two small makeshift grenades exploded outside the British Consulate in New York early Thursday, causing slight damage to the building but injuring no one, officials said.
The blasts occurred at 3:50 a.m. as voters were going to the polls in Britain. In London, Britain's Foreign Office said there were no provisions for Britons to vote at overseas consulates.
Police spokesman Noel Waters said the grenades had been placed inside a cement flower box outside the front door of the midtown Manhattan building that houses the consulate.
After piecing together the shrapnel, police determined the devices were toy grenades that had been filled with gunpowder. Officers estimated that one was the size of a pineapple; the other the size of a lemon.
The blasts shattered a panel of glass in the building's front door and ripped a one-foot chunk from the planter. The department's bomb squad was at the scene and streets were closed in the area.
The building has retail shops on the lower level.
Voters cast ballots Thursday in Britain's national election, a heated race in which Prime Minister Tony Blair's fight for a third term could be hampered by public anger over the Iraq war.
Although Blair's Labour Party is expected to win the election, anti-war sentiment could keep him from securing the landslide victories he won in 1997 and 2001.
Few expect Blair's main rival, Conservative Party leader Michael Howard to become prime minister, but the Tories could pare back the number of seats Labour holds in the House of Commons. Blair's party had a huge 161-seat majority in the outgoing legislature; the new house will have 646 members.
If Labour's majority shrinks significantly, it could badly damage Blair, who would wield less power than in his first two terms and lose standing within his party.
Blair has said that if Labour wins he would serve a full third term but not run for a fourth. Observers have speculated, however, that he could hand power to his Treasury Chief Gordon Brown midterm if he is badly weakened in the election.
Turnout in the race could be crucial. The last general election in 2001 saw a turnout of 59 percent - the lowest since troops returned in 1918 at the end of World War I.
This year's brief but hard-hitting campaign has exposed the depth of Britons' anger at the prime minister, whose formidable political skills once charmed voters who saw him as a fresh face of change after 18 years of Tory government in the 1980s and '90s.
Blair's decision to commit the country to war in Iraq and his centrist stance on domestic issues - including plans to partly privatize some public services - have infuriated many within his own party.
But he has benefited from the Conservatives' even greater unpopularity, and a perception that the opposition is less capable of handling the economy.
"It's a Labour-despite-everything victory," predicted Philip Cowley, a political analyst at Nottingham University.
Even more damaging for Blair, Cowley said, "This time they will win despite him."
If Labour lawmakers see it that way too, it could mean a quicker exit from power than Blair would like, even if the party wins Thursday's vote. Brown is eager to succeed him as prime minister and could press for a midterm handover if Blair is seen as responsible for a big loss.
"If you value it, vote for it," a Labour slogan said.
Blair has warned anti-war Labour stalwarts against casting a protest vote for the Liberal Democrats, saying that could pave the way for a Tory victory.
"This is tough and it is tight and a few hundred votes or a few thousand votes either way will determine whether people get a Conservative or Labour (lawmaker), a Conservative or Labour government," he told voters in Scotland's hard-fought Dumfries and Galloway district.
Howard headed a focused Tory campaign, pounding on just a few issues - tightening immigration, cutting taxes, cleaning up hospitals. Although Howard supported the Iraq war, he attacked Blair, accusing the prime minister of lying about intelligence and the legality of the invasion and lacking a plan to win the peace.
"The British people can vote for things to stay as they are or they can vote for positive change," Howard said at a Wednesday rally in Guildford, south of London. "If they vote for positive change, ... the country will wake up on Friday to a brighter, better Britain."
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My hunch is--just a prank. My concern is--my hunch is wrong and it's a dry run to test how we'll respond.
I'd classify it as an act of terror, since it obviously had political connotations, the grenades have a representative value of being made for killing people, and even though it was a tiny little explosion compared to what we're hearing about the terrorists using, the fear this could have generated would've been disastrous if it had actually managed to kill someone, however accidentally.
Toy grenades. Sounds like a liberal plot to outlaw toy grenades along with toy guns! About as effective too.
hyperbole..over what was basically a firecracker
toy grenade shrapnel?...surprised they dont call it
'Plastique' as to give le story more flair
Toy grenades? How do toy grenades explode and cause damage?
I think they are trying to make the exposion sound like hyperbole. This shattered glass and a cement planter. This was at an official building, the British Consulate, not a mom and pop store.
They were in fact toy grenades, according to Fox--but filled with black powder.
One was a toy grenade filled with GUN powder. The other was the size of a pineapple filled with GUN powder.
This was a terrorist act to influence the election in Britain. Don't minimize it just because the bombs were made in plastic and not glass.
I'm not--I was just stating that they were, as a point of fact, toy grenades filled with something more sinister (black powder is gun powder, we refer to it that way all the time around here).
On the other hand, something a lot more explosive is occurring at the UN--Jonathan Hunt is reporting some boxes of documents that will prove Kofi Annan is lying about the Oil For Food. I hope these grenades do not obscure this important story.
I've never seen a toy grenade the size of a pineapple, have you? That makes for a large exposion, no?
And in blue states, black powder is not readily associated with gun powder. So, the PTA soccer mom dim wits would not readily think gun powder if they hear black powder.
Is there a thread up yet about the UN investigation? If you see one, ping me. Thanks.
The "Toy" grenades were probably like the ones you can purchase at an army/navy surplus store. They are basically real (replica) grenades but hollow where the explosives would go.
Might be on Fox's website. J. Hunt was just doing a piece about it on Fox News.
Small blasts hit British consulate in New York
By Mark Egan and Claudia Parsons
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two homemade grenades exploded outside the Manhattan office building that houses the British Consulate, shattering windows in the pre-dawn hours on Thursday as voters in Britain went to the polls in a general election, New York officials said.
There were no injuries reported, and no motive was known.
The explosions occurred shortly after 3:30 a.m. and were caused by two metal "novelty grenades," one in the shape of a pineapple, the other a lemon, both packed with gunpowder, police said.
The incident, which briefly upset British financial markets, occurred as polls in Britain were opening. Prime Minister Tony Blair is seeking a third term in office after a short campaign where he battled public anger against his support of the war in Iraq.
"We do not at this point have any idea who did it or a motive," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a morning news conference at the scene.
"It is true the British Consulate is in that building, but I don't think anybody should jump to conclusions," Bloomberg said. He said there had been no warning call before the blast or any call since claiming responsibility.
"Fortunately nobody was hurt," he said. "What exactly happened is under investigation."
New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the building housed other foreign offices and that police had made precautionary checks at other diplomatic sites in the city but had found nothing so far.
"Let me stress, we have no known motive for this action at this time," Kelly said.
Kelly said counterterrorism experts, intelligence officers and the FBI were all involved in the investigation.
He said the explosion was caused by two small improvised explosive devices placed in the soil of a large concrete flower box -- typically used in New York to prevent vehicles from driving into buildings.
There was minimal damage to the building, with only a door, window and a nearby car damaged, police said.
New York has remained on high alert since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center's twin towers.
WARNINGS AHEAD OF ELECTIONS
British Consul General Philip Thomas told reporters at the scene that he hoped to open the office later in the day and hoped to host an evening party to watch British election results as planned.
"I can't speculate about who this bomb might have been aimed at, whether it was us or someone else," Thomas said, adding that he has been in touch with other British concerns in New York.
Authorities blocked off the area, just a few blocks from the United Nations. The building is located at 845 Third Avenue, between 51st and 52nd streets.
British voters have been warned that Britain and its interests could be targeted by terrorists during the election campaign.
After the New York incident Chicago police briefly closed off part of busy Michigan Avenue in front of the building housing the British Consulate offices to make security checks.
The British Consulate in Istanbul was attacked in November 2003. That attack, and another against a British bank in the same city at the same time, killed the British Consul and 31 others.
Europeans also remember the attacks in Madrid that killed nearly 200 people on March 11, 2004, and which directly affected the outcome of the Spanish general election three days later.
Stock futures dipped at around 5 a.m./0900 GMT on news of the explosion before recovering some of their losses.
"The futures took a bit of a dip when the news came of the explosion in New York City," said Oliver Stevens, senior trader at IG Index.
Another tenant of the building is The Conference Board -- a private firm that compiles several U.S. economic indicators that help gauge the state of the American economy.
Thanks, I'm in Google news looking for it now.
My point that I'm poorly trying to make, reporting toy grenade with black powder draws up a different image than bomb size of a pineapple filled with gun powder.
NY/NJ we aren't able to play with guns and the perception draws a different image than in states where you are allowed to blow tree stumps with dynamite on your own property.
I trying to say the reporting minimizes what happened.
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