LONDON, June 29: Police defused a car bomb packed with petrol, gas and nails in London’s busy theatre district on Friday, foiling an attack that could have killed many people and which echoed a previous Al Qaeda plot, police said.

Police also sealed off two more central London streets — Park Lane and Fleet Street — as they investigated other suspicious vehicles.

The bomb was found in a green Mercedes parked outside a night club shortly after 1am, when hundreds of people were packed in the busy night-life district 1km from the prime minister’s Downing Street residence.

The police, alerted by ambulance workers who thought they saw smoke inside the car, defused the bomb, which Sky News said was rigged to detonate with a mobile-phone-triggered device.

Authorities said they did not know who left the bomb but they had begun a counter-terrorism investigation.

“It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been significant injury or loss of life,” said Peter Clarke, the head of London’s anti-terrorist police.

He said there were similarities between Friday’s incident and an earlier plot, uncovered in 2004, in which an Al Qaeda militant planned to detonate gas-fuelled bombs inside limousines in London, among other targets.

It might also have echoes of another recent plot to attack targets including a high-profile nightclub, Clarke said.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, facing a major challenge two days after succeeding Tony Blair, convened Britain’s top security committee, Cobra.

—Reuters