Special Report

June 29, 2007 — -- The following is a transcript of ABC News' Special Report Friday afternoon on the thwarted London bomb plot:

Good day, I'm Charles Gibson at ABC News headquarters in New York. It now appears that there has been a terrorist plot uncovered in the city of London. This is a story that has been developing all day, but as you may know, last night, late last night, early this morning in London time, there was a Mercedes car found on a very busy London street laden with gasoline, propane gas and nails, set to explode. It was outside a busy night club in downtown London that was bustling with people. An ambulance driver went by, noticed the car, it was smoking, called the police. They found the gasoline and the propane inside, were able to defuse the bomb.

But now it appears that there may be other vehicles in London that have similar explosive devices and it may be that London has a line on the suspect behind all this. Our chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross is with me. Tell me about this suspect.

Brian Ross: Good afternoon, Charlie. British and U.S. authorities tell us they now have a crystal clear surveillance photo of the man who drove that silver Mercedes outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub early this morning. And that he bears a very close resemblance to a man who was arrested in a similar bomb plot two or three years ago, but then later released for lack of evidence. According to authorities, the man is seen staggering from the car after he parked it -- perhaps drunk, perhaps high on drugs, perhaps just nervous.

We also know the car involved was stolen in early June. It was spotted Wednesday in Scotland according to authorities, and then late last night, Thursday night in Birmingham, England, where apparently it was driven directly into London.

Gibson: Now they have pictures of this fellow and he may be associated with an earlier plot. In 2004, there was a plot where a car, a limousine was parked outside a busy nightclub, similarly packed with explosives.

Ross: Exactly. And that plot was put together by a man named Dhiren Barot, who is now in prison. He designed a plot using propane and butane cylinders. This man who drove the car last night bears a close resemblance to one of his associates. That plot, put together by Barot, involved not only London, but Newark, N.J., New York City, and Washington, D.C. He had planned to use limousines laden with cylinders of propane and butane to attack the Citycorp building here in New York.

Gibson: And British authorities have made mention of the similarities of these situations. As people may know, there is a new government now in Great Britain. There is a new prime minister and a new home secretary -- Jacqui Smith is her name. And she talked about this as being a possible international terrorist plot. And we're now getting indications that it may be because there's another vehicle that they are looking at.

Ross: Exactly, which appears to have similar propane and butane tanks, also thought to be a second car bomb, which puts it in the category of a plot as opposed to a one-time incident. The car, the silver Mercedes, was rigged with 33 gallons of gasoline, 5 or 6 cylinders of propane and butane. Now those were hooked up to two different cell phones, which were designed to trigger the bomb. Calls were made, according to police, to both of the cell phones -- two different calls. The bomb failed to go off. But the calls were made around 1:45 in the morning, 15 minutes before closing time of this nightclub.

Gibson: I want to turn to Jim Sciutto, who is in our London Bureau. Jim, one of the things that Brian mentioned that is interesting and might strike people is that they might have a picture of this fellow getting out of the car. How would they have this picture?

Sciutto: One thing you learn very quickly in London is that you are photographed and filmed hundreds of times a day, apparently. There are so many cameras around central London, some for security reasons, some to follow traffic and parking... So very early on we knew the police were going to be looking at this CCT footage to try to see if they caught an image of the bomber, and it appears that they have.

Gibson: Yes, London is very used to bombing plots, and many of these cameras went into place. We're looking at pictures of some of them. Many of these cameras went into place because of IRA bombing plots that occurred in London, and it was thought to be a good security for those. And then as you mentioned, there are also traffic cameras all over the place in London. Now we mentioned a second vehicle -- this second vehicle that they're looking at and that we understand may have explosives in it was near Hyde Park.

Sciutto: That's right. This is the place where cars are taken if they're impounded, if they're towed. And that's an underground parking lot. That's what you're seeing in that image there. There are reports here, just reports at this stage, that this second car was towed from a location in the West End of London, the theater district, near where the first bomb was. Towed, presumably, because it was parked illegally, towed to this impound lot, and that people there noticed a smell of gasoline. And that's when they alerted authorities.

Gibson: Alright, Jim Sciutto, thanks very much. [I] Should mention, President Bush has received a second briefing on this incident. He got that this afternoon from Fran Townsend, who's the White House security adviser, Homeland Security adviser. And I want to turn to Pierre Thomas, who covers the Department of Homeland Security for us. Pierre, obviously people in this country would think, might there be any American connection if there was a plot here in London?

Thomas: Charlie, they're looking at that very closely. The FBI has a very close working relationship with the British, and law enforcement officials are telling us that, again, no specific ties to the U.S. that they can determine just yet. So they are not planning to change the threat level unless they get more specific information. One of the things I'm told that they are going to be doing in the very near future -- if they have not already started -- is to start to look very closely for fingerprints on the car, on the device, and to see if it fits any fingerprints that they have on the national database that they've been collecting of terrorism suspects from around the world. They put those fingerprints in the database. They will look to see if there are any connections there. And to refer back to what Brian was talking about, if this person was an earlier suspect, there's a good chance there would be a fingerprint of that man, and they'll be looking very closely at that database to see if there's a match.

Gibson: Alright, Pierre Thomas, appreciate it. Just to sum up, again, early this morning London time, last night American time, a car found outside a busy London nightclub laden with explosives, which were not detonated. The detonators did not work. The car was spotted; the bomb was defused outside that nightclub. And as Brian Ross reported, they now have a suspect that they have spotted on camera, a suspect that may have been tied to an earlier bombing plot in London. And then in Park Lane, in a car park next to Hyde Park, a second suspicious vehicle has been found, which may indeed also have explosives in it. Again, not detonated, and police there -- although, traffic is now flowing again around Hyde Park, which would certainly lead to the conclusion that if there were explosives in that car, they also have been defused.

I'm Charles Gibson at ABC News headquarters in New York. There will be more on our digital channel, ABC News Now, more on ABCNEWS.com. And a full report tonight on ABC's "World News." Good day.