A deliberate IRA bomb attack using misleading warnings to maximize casualties on a busy London shopping street, injuring 18 people.
Key Facts
- Date
- 27 February 1993
- Injured
- 18 people
- Device location
- Litter bin, Camden High Street south end
- False warning location
- Kentucky Fried Chicken, north end of High Street
- Distance of decoy from bomb
- 400 yards
- Day of attack
- Saturday, after midday
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The Provisional IRA was conducting a campaign of bomb attacks in mainland Britain in 1993. Targeting a busy Camden High Street on a Saturday afternoon, the group sought to cause mass casualties among civilian shoppers, using a deliberate false warning to misdirect police and move bystanders toward the actual device.
On 27 February 1993, a bomb concealed in a litter bin exploded on Camden High Street, London. The IRA issued a coded warning about a bomb at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant 400 yards away in the north end of the street, causing police to unknowingly evacuate people toward the actual device in the south end, injuring 18 people including Swedish tourist Jennie Erikson, aged 22.
Scotland Yard chief Bernard Luckhurst publicly stated that the misleading warnings were designed to kill or injure as many people as possible. The attack occurred the day after the Warrington bomb attacks, underscoring the IRA's intensified mainland bombing campaign in early 1993 and raising public concern over the use of deceptive warnings to circumvent police cordons.