Election disrupting, or Something More?

I’m not quite sure what to make of this story.

Two small makeshift grenades exploded outside a building housing the British Consulate early Thursday, Election Day in England, causing slight damage but injuring no one, officials said.

Some folks, including Instapundit and TKS, are taking it as an action by an organized terrorist group to influence the British elections.

I’m not sure I buy that. From the reports, what exploded were two fake grenades filled with gunpowder dropped into a flower planter. The damage was minimal – indeed there was little chance of the damage being much more than minimal. You could probably expect the news to be broadcast in Britain, but since the attack has no obvious context (there’s been no clain for responsibility and there are no reports of statements left at the scene), the reason for the attack is left only to our conjecture.

Perhaps a group like al-Qaeda or the IRA would count on us to provide our own context, but neither group has really operated that way before.

Something in the back of my mind said “test run” when I read this report. Think about it a moment. This is a fairly well-traveled area of one of the most populous cities on the planet. Along with that, the bombing took place outside the Consulate of one of our most steadfast allies in the War on Terror. perhaps this was just an attempt to feel out security in the area. After all, if someone could drop two gunpowder-filled small containers, they could just as easily have dropped two containers filled with biological agent also. I can’t imagine that they’d do this without having some idea about security outside the building – the attack wouldn’t have worked had the perpetrator been caught before he delivered the bombs.

I don’t really have any solid evidence for my suspicion. It could just as easily have been some lone nut who wanted to cause a little ruckus in New York this morning.

Still, we shouldn’t take that chance. I hope that the NYPD is covering all the bases on this and not simply considering it an attempt to disrupt an election.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin, at the very end of her link-filled post, allows for the same possibility I’m considering.

UPDATE 2: Rusty Shackleford concurs with James Joyner in saying that the nature of the bombing doesn’t point to professionals. I don’t necessarily agree. Professional terrorist would, I think, use the simplest device they could to get the job done. If all they wanted to do was to pull off a test run with something that would provide a big enough bang to demonstrate that it would work, they did their job perfectly.

Like Joyner says in his post, this is all speculation. All I’m really saying is that I’m willing to err on the side of lots of caution until we find a concrete reason to rule it out.