A BOMB exploded in an empty house in central London last night just minutes after a media organisation received a coded IRA warning about the attack.
A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said the device exploded at 9.45 p.m. in an empty house in the Boltons, off Collingham Road, Earl's Court. There were no injuries and the damage was confined to inside the building.
"The bomb exploded in a large house under renovation just three minutes after a recognised coded IRA warning was received by the Associated Press news agency," the spokeswoman said.
Police sealed off a large area around the scene as anti terrorist officers searched for further devices.
The Boltons is a wealthy and exclusive residential area in central London and is a favourite base for many Arab businessmen.
If the bomb is confirmed as an IRA explosion, it will be the fifth IRA attack in London since the ceasefire ended in February.
It comes just hours before the House of Commons debates legislation for the elections in May in Northern Ireland.
Eyewitnesses said the house was rocked by the blast. "I heard what sounded like a clap of thunder. There was a vast explosion that shook the house, the windows almost came in," Ms Carolyn Seymour, a local resident, said.
The IRA's last bomb attack was in March, outside a cemetery just under a mile from last night's explosion.
A Government spokesman said there would be no comment until more was known about the circumstances surrounding the blast.
However, a spokesman for the Ulster Unionist Party, Councillor Jim Rodgers, called for an end to contact between British civil servants and "Sinn Fein/IRA".
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, said he had no doubt the blast was the work of the IRA.
The vice chairman of the Conservative Party back bench Northern Ireland committee, Mr David Wilshire MP, said the IRA "have clearly turned their back on the political process.