It is not only New York's early evening theatre-goers who have reason to be thankful for the incompetence of the man who attempted to blow up Times Square. Barack Obama's reputation for being a lucky president has been further enhanced – he might, after all, have been dealing with the horrific aftermath of yet another major terrorist act on American soil. Filled with three propane tanks, gas cans, a gun box, firecrackers and two clocks, the car bomb parked in the heart of the entertainment district at 6.30pm last Saturday was designed to cause carnage.
But in a rerun of the failed al-Qaeda attempt to blow up a London nightclub in the summer of 2007, the bomber's device produced only a tell-tale plume of white smoke. This alerted the city's bomb-disposal teams, which were then able to disarm the apparatus in good time.
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