ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Chabad.org
07April2011 8:21pmEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE:
According to Chabad.org news site, authorities worked to clear up the scene of a Thursday morning explosion near S. Monica, Calif.’s downtown Chabad-Lubavitch center, the city’s police department announced that the blast which resulted in the evacuation of a four-block radius around the 1400 block of 17th Street was “not an intentional act.”
“There was no incendiary device,” said SMPD spokeswoman Lauralee Asch. “The explosion was due to a mechanical failure.”
Some witnesses at the Chabad House who had gathered for their 7 a.m. morning prayer services reported hearing some type of explosion, while a call to the police department from a neighboring building reported that debris had fallen on the building’s roof. Police, backed by the city’s fire department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s bomb squad, evacuated the area. (read full report)
(UPDATE from the GCIS Intel Briefing Room: a reliable source has told GCIS that combustible materials left at a construction site in an alley behind the Chabad center were the cause of the explosion. Our source explained that while the building had sustained minor damage, the device was not a bomb, and the center itself was not the target of an attack.)
