Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 7, 1991 TAG: 9102070550
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
No one immediately claimed responsibility, but Major blamed the Irish Republican Army and said the attack was deliberately timed "to kill the Cabinet and to do damage to our system of government."
A spokesman for Scotland Yard, Stewart Goodwin, said the IRA was suspected because the group has carried out similar attacks in Northern Ireland, where it seeks to end British rule and unite the province with the Republic of Ireland.
Major told the House of Commons: "It is about time they learned that democracy cannot be intimidated by terrorism and we rightly treat them with contempt."
Westminster Hospital said three police officers and a civilian were treated for minor injuries, including lacerations from flying glass.
Two other mortar shells fell near the Foreign Office, which adjoins Downing Street, but they did not explode, a spokeswoman for Scotland Yard said. However, Home Secretary Kenneth Baker told Commons that one did explode. Some windows were reported shattered at the Foreign Office.
The van was 100 yards from 10 Downing Street, where the prime minister lives and works. Scotland Yard said the mortars apparently were fired through the roof of the vehicle, after two men were seen running away. No bodies were found in the van, Goodwin said.
Lord Waddington, leader of the House of Lords, said it was the first instance of a mortar attack in Britain.
The van, which was parked off Whitehall, a busy thoroughfare lined with government offices, was engulfed by flames after the mortars fired.
"This thing wasn't sitting there for a long time. It was there for a matter of seconds," said Goodwin.
He said the mortar, which landed about 40-50 feet behind 10 Downing St., dug a shallow crater, and the explosion scorched a wall of the building and broke windows, especially in the upper floor.
Two women who were participating in a peace vigil near Downing Street on a cold and snowy morning said a piece of the metal landed in the street near them.
One of them said there was a series of explosions and the van burst into flames with black smoke. "A piece of metal came flying past us," Press Association quoted her as saying.
"I heard three loud explosions sort of consecutively, followed a second later by another explosion, I mean just loud bangs basically," said Dr. Andy Ashworth, a former army doctor who heard the explosions.
"When I turned the corner, I saw a white Ford transit van, its rear doors open, a couple of sheets hanging out the back of it. But the inside of the van was a burning inferno, just flames completely engulfing the van. . . ."
At the time of the explosion, the key figures in the government were gathered at No. 10, including Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, Defense Secretary Tom King, Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont, Attorney General Sir Patrick Mayhew, and the chief of the defense staff, Air Marshal Sir David Craig.
by CNB