Reports are coming in on Twitter that say that the London Metropolitan Police have carried out a controlled explosion of a suspicious vehicle parked outside the Israeli embassy in Kensingon, London.
It’s also believed that the police evacuated a stretch of the Kensington High Street as well as an area outside the Tube station.
The car left in Palace Green is now deemed safe and the police have yet to comment on what denoted the car “suspicious” or if any explosives were found. We will update this piece when more information becomes available. Ahead of the Euro championship security concerns are at a high level throughout Europe.
UPDATE 2:19 PM EDT
A spokesperson from the Metropolitan Police has now made an announcement that says the Kensington High Street has been reopened while explaining the situation.
“A car was treated as suspicious. There was a controlled explosion to test it, to see if it was explosive, and it was found not be to be suspicious.
“All the safety gear and cordons are now being removed.”
Due to the closure of the Tube station, a Transport for London spokesperson also made a statement saying that the package in the car has “now been discovered to be personal belongings.”
Kensington is located in the west of London and embassy employees appear to be returning to work.
Israeli Embassies are a high value target
It goes almost without saying that most terrorist organizations aren’t tremendous fans of Israel and the country’s embassies have been attacked on numerous occasions. Perhaps most notably in 1992 when the Israeli embassy as bombed by a group calling itself the Islamic Jihad Organization in Buenos Aires. In the middle of the afternoon an explosive laden pick-up truck driven by a suicide bomber smashed into the embassy at the corner of Arroyo and Suipacha in downtown Buenos Aires and detonated destroying the embassy, a Catholic church (bonus points?) and a nearby school building that these animals don’t seem to mind blowing up either.
Four Israeli citizens were killed but the bulk of the deaths and injuries were Argentinian and many were children.
The blast killed 29 in all and wounded an additional 242. The attack was the deadliest on an Israeli diplomatic mission.
