Election day bomb blasts

Two bombs exploded outside the British consulate in New York today in an election-day terror scare.

The blasts rocked the high-rise office building in Manhattan shortly before 4am local time, shattering windows and damaging a car.

They follow warnings by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair that al Qaeda may try to disrupt the general election with a Madrid-style bombing in London. British embassies around the world are on a state of high alert.

New York police described the bombs as plastic "novelty devices", one the size and shape of a pineapple and the second the shape of a lemon.

The devices detonated within a minute of each other in concrete plant containers, which had been placed to prevent suicide bombers driving into the building.

One contained gunpowder and had a fuse. A New York Police Department spokesman said: "It was one of those things you light and then run."

Officers from Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad were liaising with the FBI's counter-terrorism unit today but sources said it was too early to determine if the incident was terrorist related or the actions of a crank.

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed no one had been injured in the blasts.

Ferdinando Prete, 66, a night watchman at a neighbouring building, said he ran into the street when he heard the two blasts. "I heard two big explosions, one bang right after the other. I couldn't see any smoke or flames and then a few minutes later the police started to arrive.

"Everyone says that it was a bomb and something to do with the election in the UK," he said.

News of the incident emerged as Tony Blair was casting his vote in his Sedgefield constituency.

Security was tightened at embassies around the world after the attack on the British consulate in Istanbul in November 2003 which killed 16 people, 10 of them staff including Consul General Roger Short and his personal assistant.

The New York consulate on Third Avenue assists distressed Britons, issues emergency British passports and handles visa applications.

The NYPD spokesman said one of the explosions had blown out a chunk of a plant container. Police hope security camera footage will reveal what happened.

Professor Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrew's University, said: "It was planned to go off at a time when there was not a lot of people around and on the face of it it looks to be a very small scale incident."

It came a day after Pakistan announced it had seized al Qaeda's third in command Abu Faraj al Liby. Today it emerged that about two dozen suspected al Qaeda members has also been rounded up.