Blasts near British Consulate in N.Y. probed
No injuries cited; explosions occur as Britons vote
NEW YORK -- Two homemade grenades exploded early yesterday in a large concrete planter outside the Manhattan office building that houses the British Consulate about the time the polls were opening for Britain's general election.
No one was injured, and police emphasized they did not know whether the consulate was the target. Authorities were studying images from 17 surveillance cameras in and around the midtown Manhattan building in an effort to identify who planted two grenades about 3:30 a.m.
The blasts shattered the glass door of the building, damaging one of a dozen planters used to protect the building from vehicle attacks.
''We don't know who the particular target was at this time," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. ''There were no threats or phone calls."
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said one surveillance video may show the grenades were thrown from across the street. He also said the video shows a jogger, a bicyclist, and a cab passing the building about that time.
Authorities said investigators questioned a Dutch national who was loitering around the building after the explosions, but he was released.
''Let me stress, we have no known motive for this action at this time," said Kelly.
British Consul General Philip Thomas told reporters he had no evidence that the bomb was directed at the consulate or was timed to coincide with the election, in which Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led Britain into the Iraq war as a US ally, was seeking a third term.
''I can't speculate about who this bomb might have been aimed at, whether it was us or someone else," Thomas said.
Counterterrorism specialists, the FBI, and intelligence officers were helping with the investigation, Kelly said. Investigators swept other foreign offices in the building at 845 Third Ave., between 51st and 52d streets.
Security was heightened at the United Nations, which is a few blocks away. Police in Chicago closed off sections of the street near the British Consulate there for about 30 minutes to search the area.
The British Consulate in Cambridge remained open during the day, a spokesman said. Consulate officials were in contact with police and taking unspecified additional security precautions, but going about business as usual, spokesman Daniel Apicella said.
Security was also heightened at the British Embassy in Washington. Two years ago, the British Consulate in Istanbul was attacked.
Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of the counterterrorism center for the CIA, said the New York attack did not look like an act of terrorism.
''If it was Al Qaeda, the building would have been down," he said. ''It was basically gunpowder packed in toys. There was no real detonation, nothing other than a fuse. You have to look at it as a symbolic act. It was placed in a flowerpot with no one around. The question is: Symbolic for what? Circumstantial evidence says it's connected to the British Consulate and the elections going on at the same time."
In March 2004, train bombings in Madrid that killed nearly 200 people affected the outcome of the Spain's general election three days later. Investigators have charged militant Islamists in the attacks.
Cannistraro said the US government cannot protect every single target in big urban areas like New York and Boston. ''It's physically impossible," he said, adding the government should try to secure potential targets and set up perimeters that will stop a truck from driving into buildings.
Walter Burns, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, said the foot-long concrete planters were placed in front of the building for that security purpose.
He also said authorities believe the grenades, which he described as looking like pineapples, were probably thrown and placed together, but he said only one detonated.
''They can tell because of different materials. They had to light one," he said.
Earlier, Kelly said the devices looked like vintage grenades. He also said earlier in the day that they were probably packed with gunpowder and placed in the soil of one of 12 large concrete planters in front of the building.
Bloomberg encouraged New Yorkers to go about business as usual.
''What exactly happened is under investigation. But I think clearly this kind of thing is something that we are all concerned about. My advice to the public is to go about your lives," said Bloomberg.
Just before noon, traffic in midtown was clogged as usual and the subways were running regularly.
New Yorkers, who have become accustomed to bomb scares and throngs of police cars screeching around the city since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, barely blinked at the large group of investigators and police officers standing outside the building, where the consulate is located on upper floors.
Globe staffers Susan Milligan and Charlie Savage contributed from Washington, Globe correspondent Glenn Yoder from Boston. Material from the Associated Press was also used. 