An Arab was killed early this morning by a bomb he was believed to be assembling in a hotel in central London. The bomb went off in a bedroom on the fifth floor of the 700-room Mount Royal Hotel, wrecking five bedrooms. Three other guests were injured, including a German who was hospitalized and is being questioned by Scotland Yard. Scores of guests fled into the streets in their nightclothes. Police identified the dead man as Mahammed Soltani, 22, from Bahrain. He had registered in the hotel on Tuesday as a student.
Some five hours later a second bomb exploded in the hotel. There were no casualties. The second explosion was thought to have come from a device buried by debris from the original blast, a Scotland Yard spokesman said. The hotel is at the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street, and close to the scene of several other Arab terrorist incidents, including the attack on an El Al air crew bus two years ago.
The last terrorist incident in London occurred in the middle of December when a bomb went off in the Turkish Airlines office.
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