On Thursday, Nicky Reilly, a 22-year old man from Plymouth attempted to explode several bombs in a restaurant in Exeter. Police reported that bombs were packed with nails in an attempt to maximise casualties among the lunctime diners - who were mainly women and children.
Interestingly, police reported that the suspect was a recent convert to Islam. Only two weeks ago, Andrew Ibrahim, another recent convert to Islam was charged under the Terrorism Act after police discovered home-made bombs in his house in Bristol. It seems unlikely that the two incidents in England's usual tranquil South-West are un-related.
Instead it seems likely that there are several possible explanations for the parallels between these two attempted attacks:
Two-man plot - The two men knew each other. Andrew Ibrahim and Nicky Reilly made plans to carry out attacks together. When Ibrahim was arrested, his co-conspirator pressed ahead; constructing his bombs and attempting to detonate them in a public place.
Copycat bombing - After Ibrahim was arrested and his intentions made public, Reilly decided to copy him, independently building his own bomb and preparing a plan of attack. However, as Ibrahim was only arrested five weeks ago, it is unlikely a bomb could have been made from scratch in that time.
Larger plot - Ibrahim and Reilly were recruited independently by another - as yet unidentified individuals. They did not know each other - or else knew each other only slightly. Both individuals were reported to be lonely and isolated figures whose naivity could easily have been exploited by an experienced terrorist recruiter. If this is the case, the most dangerous member of the plot is still at large. This is clearly the understanding of anti-terrorism police, who arrested several other individuals in Exeter on Friday afternoon.
Much will depend on whether the explosives used were of a similar make, design and manufacture. The CSC will be closely following the case as the investigations unfold.
What exactly does it matter which proportion of the diners were women?
This piece of information is not just a passing-on of the BBC's phrasing, but an additional inference from their comment that: 'no-one else was hurt in the explosion at the restaurant, which was busy at the time and is popular with families.' So presumably you thought it was important for some reason.
Sorry for the pedantry, but I'm sure you appreciate having this slight anti-feminist slip-of-the-mind corrected.