Dark farce of the Bristol bomber: 50 attacks in four years. . . and he's gutted the brand new £18 million police firing range. So who IS the mystery anarchist making fools of Avon and Somerset Constabulary?

Bristol bomber uses Indymedia website to boast about his latest attacks



It took firefighter four days to extinguish the flames at the police gun range

North Avon Magistrates' court was firebombed ten days ago in linked attack



Local MP Charlotte Leslie said if religious extremists were responsible it would receive far greater attention from the media and the police



The attack was as daring as it was destructive. In the early hours of August 27 last year, anarchists slipped through the cordon around a highly sensitive construction project: a firearms training centre for Avon and Somerset police, next to their HQ near Portishead.



This is how the perpetrators boasted of what happened next when they claimed responsibility online: ‘We used accelerant to burn the major electrical cables at five junction points throughout the complex, and doused and lighted a pallet of fittings and wires… we left it with flames licking high.’



The blaze was so intense it took four days to put it out. The firearms centre – a state-of-the-art-facility designed to serve forces across the South West, with classrooms and two firing ranges – had been due to open within weeks. It was wrecked. Police said the cost of the damage was £18 million.



The Bristol Bomber is believed to have been behind the arson attack on Avon and Somerset's new firearms training unit causing £18 million worth of damage. The blaze took four days to get under control

Local MP Charlotte Leslie said if this was the work of a religious extremist rather than an anarchist group it would be receiving far greater attention from the police and the media

There was an extensive investigation and Chief Constable Nick Gargan promised they would catch whoever was responsible by ‘developing the intelligence picture’. To date, they have failed.



They did make one arrest, but Mr Gargan – who is now suspended following allegations of sexual harassment – has admitted this ‘didn’t lead to anything productive’.

Yet the anarchist or anarchists – dubbed the ‘Bristol Unabomber’, after reclusive American killer Ted Kaczynski, by a domestic extremism analyst who believes it is one person – is apparently not only laughing at the law, but has struck repeatedly, getting away with serious crimes time and again.

For The Mail on Sunday can reveal that although the Portishead attack was the most costly, it was just one in a series of about 50 incidents in and around Bristol, dating back more than four years.



Some are seemingly trivial: minor fires that soon fizzled out; graffiti daubings of businesses and paint-stripper thrown on cars. Others, however, are far more serious – and there is evidence that they are linked.



No other UK city has been subject to anything remotely comparable. Yet the Avon and Somerset force have resisted suggestions that the many components are connected, despite an obvious common factor – the online claims of responsibility, all written in an outraged jargon that seems to reject every aspect of contemporary Britain.



The Bristol Bomber claimed responsibility for the attack on the training centre, pictured, on behalf of a group opposed to culling badgers

Avon and Somerset police denied that yesterday's attack which forced the evacuation of more than 460 homes in Bristol was linked to the ongoing campaign of terror

Early yesterday, hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in the Fishponds area of Bristol, while police carried out a controlled explosion on a suspicious car. However, police said the incident was ‘isolated’.



The most recent ‘Unabomber’ attack – by a home-made incendiary bomb that gutted the front and lobby of North Avon Magistrates’ Court – took place ten days ago, in the small hours of May 22. So far, no one has been injured, but some of the attacks might easily have led to loss of life. One of the worst took place in May 2012, when train signal cable wires were dug up and set on fire at two stations on Bristol’s network, Parson Street and Bedminster.



The attacks have hit offices, vehicles and shops, targeting businesses such as the supermarket Tesco, the banks Barclays and Santander, energy companies EDF and E.ON, and private security firms G4S and Serco.



Royal Marines vehicles were set on fire at a base in the Clifton area in February, and three cars, two people carriers and a van were torched inside a UK Border Agency garage last year.



The arsonist or arsonists have also destroyed cabling in television, radio, police and mobile phone transmitter masts at least four times, causing damage worth many tens of thousands of pounds. After an attack on a mast at Bathampton in April 2012, 80,000 homes lost their TV signal for several days.



Calculating a total sum for the damage caused is difficult. But, adding the cost of the firearms to the masts, the railway and office attacks and the many vehicles damaged or destroyed, it must be more than £20 million.



The Bristol Bomber also claimed responsibility for an attack on a UK Border Agency in Portishead, Bristol on June 21, 2013

Each incident has followed a similar pattern: First the attack, then a long communique claiming responsibility, usually posted on the ‘Indymedia’ and international anarchist ‘325.nostate’ websites.



These have often appeared before any reports have been carried by news media. They usually contain crucial and accurate details not reported elsewhere and, say analysts, are therefore almost certainly the work of those responsible.



The statements justify the target, and the methods used. In the case of the firearms centre, the statement said: ‘The police and security industry specialise in making us feel powerless in our own lives, and making these attacks goes a long way to overcoming this feeling.’



According to the statement, this attack was mounted by a group called the ‘Angry Foxes Cell’. More usually, the organisations cited are the ‘Earth Liberation Front’ (ELF) and the ‘Informal Anarchist Federation’ (FAI).



The statement issued after the court firebombing said it was carried out with ‘an IED [improvised explosive device]’ made of ten camping gas canisters and ‘home-made napalm’. It added: ‘The justice system tries to pass itself off as the only protection from the very same desperation and imbalances that civilised society creates. Its real function is and has always been to protect and sanctify property and privilege above all.’



All the statements end the same way – with appeals for support for anarchists jailed abroad, in countries such as Greece, Italy and Mexico. Some are supposedly FAI members.

As part of his campaign of terror, the Bristol Bomber attacked the front of North Avon Magistrates' Court with an improvised incendiary device, causing damage to the front entrance, pictured

The police have not so far admitted any of the attacks are linked – which, say some, is a grave mistake. A former police expert in domestic extremism, now working as a security consultant, told The Mail on Sunday on condition of anonymity: ‘We’ve been trying to draw Avon and Somerset’s attention to the obvious links between these attacks for more than two years.



‘There is clearly a pattern, yet they for a long time just didn’t seem to want to know. That means they ignored what should have been critical leads, such as the similarities between the online statements, and the clues they seem to contain.’



Charlotte Leslie, MP for Bristol North West, said ‘most people would be completely stunned’ to discover ‘this series of highly professional, apparently orchestrated attacks’.



She added: ‘If these attacks were the work of a religious extremist, the police and the rest of the media would be all over them. Yet this is every bit as serious, and, potentially, every bit as dangerous. How far does this network go? Who is collaborating with it?’

This newspaper spoke to two officers dealing with the attacks, Det Supt Rachel Williams and Supt Kevin Instance. He admitted for the first time that police are now pursuing connections between the statements, adding: ‘There are similarities between some of the incidents, but as yet there is nothing conclusive.’



The connections might seem clear to national experts, but in Avon and Somerset, he insisted, the police were ‘keeping an open mind’.

Ms Williams added: ‘There probably are relatively few people causing significant amounts of damage, and they are being camouflaged by their communities.’



The striking fact about the attacks is the almost total absence of clues. Bristol is covered by a dense network of CCTV cameras, and yet these have provided no evidence strong enough to lead to an arrest.The attacker or attackers have never triggered an alarm, nor left fingerprints or other forensic clues. If they do comprise a cell or group, its membership appears to be watertight: No-one has blabbed.



According to the ex-police security analyst, these factors suggest that all or most of the more serious attacks are the work of one person – probably not a youthful hothead but an older, reclusive person.



The Bristol Bomber claims responsibility for his terrorist attacks on several anarchist websites

Like the American Unabomber Kaczynski, this person seems determined not to be caught and endowed with a high degree of self-control: ‘If you look at the pattern over the past few years, you get a little flurry of incidents, provoking a lot of police activity, and then you get a lull until the fuss dies down.’



Last year, more than three months elapsed between the firearms centre arson and the next incident, the torching of an EDF van. After the Marine base attack in February, three months elapsed before the bombing of the magistrates’ court.

Kaczynski, the analyst pointed out, was only caught – having already killed three people – when his brother recognized linguistic quirks in his public claims of responsibility: ‘It may well take something similar to identify this guy.’



An Avon and Somerset police spokesman said anyone with information should call the police on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.



Yet even as the force investigated the court bombing, he insisted that the online claim of responsibility and echoes of earlier attacks were merely ‘one line of inquiry’.

