British Probe Possible Libyan Connection to Bombing of Airline Office

LONDON — Police confirmed Thursday that a bomb caused the predawn explosion that ripped through a British Airways ticket office in the heart of London’s Oxford Street shopping area, gutting the office and blowing out windows of stores hundreds of yards away but injuring only one person slightly.

It was Britain’s second brush with a potential disaster in a week.

Police detectives said that the possibility of a Libyan connection was under investigation, but they stressed that they have no firm information about who carried out the attack. No one has claimed responsibility.

Earlier in the week, the British Home Office, which deals with police and security matters, said it had detained 21 Libyans and would expel them as security threats. On Thursday it said a 22nd Libyan, a student, had been arrested in Bradford in northern England, and will be deported with those already detained.

The blast in London occurred just before 5 a.m., a time when the city’s premier shopping street was virtually deserted. One woman standing about 100 yards away was reportedly knocked off her feet by the blast and was the only person reported injured.

Elderly residents living in apartments above the ticket office were evacuated and a fire caused by the bomb was extinguished after about an hour.

The area was cordoned off for several hours because of glass falling onto sidewalks.

Police officials said that if the bomb had been detonated a few hours later, it most likely would have caused heavy casualties. They declined to comment on the size or nature of the explosive involved.

The attack on the British Airways office came exactly one week after a woman passed through all routine security checks at London’s Heathrow Airport carrying a 10-pound time bomb and was minutes from boarding an El Al jumbo jet when she was stopped by an alert member of the Israeli airline’s own security staff. That bomb would almost certainly have destroyed the aircraft carrying 388 people.

The woman’s Palestinian boyfriend, currently in custody here, is suspected of having planted the device.

A large window at one of London’s leading department stores, Selfridges, was blown in by the force of Thursday’s blast, and police searched the flower boxes at the base of the distinctive fluted concrete columns that adorn the store’s facade before reopening Oxford Street to traffic six hours later.

The airline office contained both an American Airlines and an American Express counter, but a police spokesman said that British Airways appeared to be the target. The bomb was apparently placed just outside the office entrance among trash that had been swept together for collection later in the day.

The six-story building that houses the ticket office is only a few hundred yards from the U.S. Embassy.

The blast came amid heightened terrorist alerts here, generated by concerns about possible Libyan or other Arab reprisals for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s decision to permit American F-111 fighter-bombers to launch their raid against Libya from bases in Britain.

Two British hostages were shot to death last week by Muslim extremists in Beirut who claimed the killings were in reprisal for the raid. On Wednesday, a pro-Libyan Muslim terrorist group gave a Beirut newspaper a videotape that purportedly shows the hanging of a third British hostage, 64-year-old writer Alec Collett.

British Ambassador John Gray told United Press International from Beirut that he could not determine from the videotape whether the victim was Collett, missing since March, 1985. No body has been found, Lebanese officials said.

Only hours before the London explosion, Libya’s Ministry of Information had warned of imminent bombing attacks in Europe. However, the ministry disclaimed any responsibility for them in advance, stating they were planned by Israeli and American agents to discredit Libya and provide an excuse for another U.S. air raid.

George Churchill-Coleman, head of Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad, urged citizens to stay alert.

“Please be vigilant,” he said. “If you see packages or vehicles that are suspicious or suspicious people, then call the police.”

In a show of force, British army units patrolled London’s main Heathrow Airport on Wednesday with troops in battle dress and armored personnel carriers stationing themselves outside long tunnels leading to the terminal complex.

An airport spokesman described the troop presence as part of a routine exercise between the Army and the London Metropolitan Police.

But throughout central London, businesses and residents were taking special precautions in light of the enhanced alert that were definitely not routine.

Department stores, airline offices and other businesses where there is easy public access have instituted new security measures.

Americans have also been advised to take unusual care.

“We’re advising people to be a little more cautious whom they let in the doors and watch what cars are parked outside,” said Harry Cressman, director general of the American Chamber of Commerce here.

More than 2,500 U.S. companies have operations in Britain and thousands of Americans live in and around London.

Several American companies, including CBS News, have removed nameplates from lobby registers, and Cressman said the American Chamber of Commerce has stopped flying the American flag outside, at least temporarily.

Customers entering the Security Pacific Bank offices in London are now required to wear badges and subject themselves to searches, while authorities at an American school in North London have also increased security.

American Telephone & Telegraph announced Wednesday that it has pulled out of a British electronics exhibition next week for security reasons, then later reversed itself, stating that it would be present.

“The implications (of the pull-out) hadn’t been aired before high-level management,” explained AT&T; spokesperson Maureen Lynch. “The decision was premature.”

Stated Cressman: “If AT&T; had stayed away, it would have been playing right into Kadafi’s hands.”