UK: Nail bomb campaign arrest
01 March 1999
On May 2, David Copeland, a 22-year old engineer from Cove in Hampshire, was charged with murder and carrying out the bombings which left three people dead and over 100 injured in London during April. Combat 18 (C18) and the White Wolves (WW) were among several fascist groups who claimed responsibility for the attacks, although police have stated that Copeland is not involved with either group. Two bombs at Brixton, south London and Brick Lane, in east London, targeted black and Asian communities while a third device exploded inside a public house at the heart of central London's gay scene. All were designed to inflict maximum injury and damage on communities that would be considered high profile targets by right wing extremists. The modus operandi of the bombings would appear to be the logical outcome of the C18 strategy of "leaderless resistance" in which an autonomous cell(s) carries out provocative terrorist attacks independently of any larger organisation in the hope of sparking a "race" war.
The first bomb exploded without warning in a crowded market in Brixton during rush hour on April 17 injuring 50 people including a baby who had a nail embedded in his head and two adults who suffered serious eye injuries. The timing of the attack, it occurred on the weekend closest to Hitler's birthdate, threw suspicion on the far right. Its location, in Brixton, an area with a large black community that had rioted against racist policing during the 1980s, also made it a high profile target. Nor had Brixton tolerated violence from racist organisations who had long ceased attempting to operate seriously in the area. After 48 hours police received a telephone call, from a man saying that C18 claimed responsibility for the outrage, made from the street in southeast London where Stephen Lawrence was killed in a racist attack in 1993. The WW also claimed the bomb and denied C18 involvement.
The second attack, exactly one week later at another highly symbolic target, Brick Lane market, in London's east end, was also claimed by C18 and the WW. This explosion appears to have been smothered after a passer-by placed the device in the boot of his car; five people were treated for cuts. In terms of its timing the Brick Lane bomb coincided with the twentieth anniversary of the police killing of Blair Peach on an anti-fascist demonstration in west London; Peach did anti-racist work in Brick Lane during the 1970s. Brick Lane, with its large Bangladeshi community, has been part of a 20 year struggle to remove violent National Front (NF) and then British National Party (BNP) thugs from the area after the racist murder of Altab Ali in Whitechapel in the late 1970's. In 1993, a gang of fascists celebrating the election of the BNP councillor Derek Beackon, attacked residents and petrol bombed shops in Brick Lane. Lately, due to community vigilance and prompt anti-racist mobilisations, fascist groups have limited their activities to sporadic paper sales.
The third bomb, which exploded inside the Admiral Duncan pub in Old Compton Street on April 30, was an attack on the heart of central London's gay scene. This devastating blast has claimed three lives while four people remain critically injured; 65 people were wounded. Soho is also a significant location for far-right extremists who frequently engage in "queer-bashing" and harassment of the gay community.
Police arrested David Copeland in a raid on his flat at Cove, near Farnborough, Hampshire on May 1; he was charged with three murders and planting the three nail bombs two days later. Police statements said that Copeland did not belong to any organisation and had acted alone in planting the bombs.
At face value this would appear to rule out C18/WW claims of responsibility, but it fails to take into account the tenets of C18's "leaderless resistance" strategy. If C18 have proved singularly unsuccessful at making an impact on the streets themselves they have sought to broaden the