Letter Bomb Explodes in London

(London, England) The congestion charge company, Capita, assesses tolls on congested roads and collects revenue from TV licenses, council tax and late-payers. Today, the company's mail room processed a letter bomb which exploded in a worker's hands.

Police said the bomb was contained in a Jiffy bag padded envelope. The woman who was handling it, said to be in her thirties, was not the intended recipient.

The blast left her marked with soot and she was led weeping and dazed from the building to an ambulance. More than 100 workers were evacuated from six floors of the building as police cordoned off the scene which is less than a mile from the Houses of Parliament.

Injuries are not reported as serious, however, the psychological consequences will likely be long-lasting. Police have no suspects thus far. Presumably, it was one guy who became angry about congestion charging.

Even so, I consider the perpetrator's act as terrorism -- individual, personal terrorism. After all, the only difference between the Capita letter bomb and the Oklahoma City bomb was the amount of explosive material.

Unfortunately, the perpetrators of individual terrorist bombings have proven to be quite difficult to identify and prosecute. For example, even now there has been no prosecution in the case of the tainted Tylenol murders of 1982.