By Lucy Caulkett-
A police manhunt is under way in Birmingham after petrol bombs were thrown at expensive cars outside a wedding venue during an evening of celebrations, in an attack that left two vehicles ablaze and raised fears over how close guests were to serious danger.
West Midlands Police said officers were called to the Royal Shalimar on Highgate Road, Sparkbrook, at about 8.30pm on Wednesday, August 19, after reports that two cars had been set on fire. The incident happened while a wedding was reportedly taking place at the venue, turning what should have been a celebratory evening into a scene of panic.
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Three men were seen fleeing from the area along nearby Mole Street before getting into a white Volkswagen Golf and driving away, police said. No injuries have been reported, but the circumstances of the attack have prompted an urgent investigation, particularly because the petrol bombs were thrown in the vicinity of people attending an event.
Reports indicate that the firebombs landed near a line of high-value vehicles, including a Lamborghini and a McLaren. Two cars were subsequently set alight. Other reporting has indicated that as many as five petrol bombs may have been thrown, although investigators will need to establish the precise sequence of events and the intended targets.
Police plan to examine CCTV footage, witness accounts, vehicle movements and any previous disputes involving those connected with the cars or the event. They will also need to establish whether the three men seen fleeing were responsible for the attack and, if so, whether they acted alone or on behalf of others.
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The incident is alarming precisely because of the potential for a relatively small firebombing attack to become a mass-casualty event. A wedding venue can contain dozens or even hundreds of people in a confined area, and flames spreading to vehicles can create additional hazards. Petrol bombs can cause rapidly developing fires, while burning fuel can spread across surfaces and ignite nearby objects.
Despite the seriousness of Wednesday night’s incident, petrol-bomb attacks are not a routine feature of life in Birmingham or Britain. There is no reliable official statistic that separately records every petrol-bomb attack in Birmingham or across the UK as a distinct category.
Historically, petrol bombs have nevertheless appeared in some of Britain’s most serious periods of political and communal violence. They were particularly associated with the conflict in Northern Ireland, where official records from the 2000s documented hundreds of petrol-bombing incidents during periods of unrest.
The historical scale of that violence should not, however, be confused with the circumstances of the Birmingham incident, for which there is currently no indication of a terrorist or politically motivated connection. Birmingham itself has a particularly painful history when it comes to attacks involving explosives. The city was devastated by the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, when bombs exploded at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs, killing 21 people and injuring about 220.
Those attacks were carried out by the IRA and remain one of the darkest episodes in the city’s history. The current petrol-bomb incident bears no established connection to that historical atrocity, but its occurrence in Birmingham inevitably places the danger of incendiary attacks within a much longer history of violence in the city.
The absence of reported injuries may ultimately prove the most fortunate aspect of the incident. Had the flames spread to the venue or had one of the incendiary devices struck people rather than vehicles, the consequences could have been considerably more serious.
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