Police arrested two more suspects in a widening hunt for members of a suspected al Qaeda cell which rammed a fuel-packed jeep into a Scottish airport and left two car bombs in London, police said on Monday. A total of seven people are now in custody in connection with the attacks.
Two of those arrested were confirmed to be doctors, one of whom qualified in Iraq and the other in Jordan. The Iraqi-trained doctor was named by police sources as Bilal Abdulla and the Jordanian-trained doctor as Mohammed Asha. Asha's wife has also been arrested. The Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, outside Glasgow where the airport was targeted on Saturday, confirmed Abdulla had worked at the hospital as a doctor.
Housing blocks at the hospital were cordoned off by police and what were believed to be controlled detonations were carried out in the area as authorities stayed on high alert.
Fearing further attacks, police banned cars and other vehicles from directly approaching airports and security measures were stepped up across the country as authorities kept the threat level at "critical", the highest rating. The latest arrests, made on Sunday night in Paisley, involved two men, one 25 and one 28, who were not believed to be of Scottish origin.
A police source said the investigation was going very well and they expected to make more arrests. The source said the plot bore "all the hallmarks" of al Qaeda and there had been no warning of the attack on Glasgow airport.
That attack, and the car bombs left in London on Friday, pose a tough test for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who last week replaced Tony Blair. A British security source said it was premature to say whether all those arrested were foreigners. "That's still an area that's being looked at." Home Secretary (interior minister) Jacqui Smith said Britain was facing a "serious and sustained threat of terrorism" and urged the public to remain on alert.
Addressing parliament on Monday, she praised the security services for their quick work in rounding up suspects but said a threat remained. On Saturday, police arrested the passenger and badly-burned driver of a Jeep Cherokee who had rammed the vehicle into the entrance of Glasgow's airport, causing a huge fireball.
The attack came 36 hours after police in London defused two Mercedes car bombs packed with fuel canisters, propane tanks and nails, parked in the heart of the capital's bustling theatre and night-club district. The other arrests included a 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman seized on a motorway in northern England on Saturday, and a 26-year-old man in Liverpool on Sunday. All three were taken to London for questioning and police were given permission to hold them until July 7.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.