/ 1 July 2007

British police arrest five after terror scares

British police arrested a fifth person on Sunday after a fuel-filled jeep was rammed into Scotland’s busiest airport in what police said was a terrorist attack linked to failed car bombings in London.

The mode, timing and targets of the attacks suggested a campaign linked to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s taking office earlier this week, security sources said. Brown himself said he saw a direct link to radical Islamists.

”It is clear that we are dealing in general terms with people who are associated with al-Qaeda,” Brown, a Scot who took office only last Wednesday, said in a sombre appraisal of the threat facing Britain.

Those arrested included a 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman seized on a major highway in northern England on Saturday night and another man (26) who was detained in Liverpool, 355km south of Glasgow, on Sunday.

Two more men, described by witnesses as Asians, were taken into custody on Saturday immediately after they slammed a Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow airport and set the vehicle ablaze.

Most of the Asian population in Britain come from the sub-continent, including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Detonation

Later on Sunday, police said they had carried out a controlled detonation of a suspicious vehicle left in the car park of a hospital near Glasgow where one of the two airport assailants was being treated for severe burns. They said they believed the car was linked to the attack on the airport, but it was not thought to contain explosives.

The airport attack, which caused five slight injuries and damaged the airport entrance, came barely 36 hours after two car bombs loaded with fuel, gas canisters and nails were found on the busy streets of central London primed to detonate.

Following the series of threats, Britain raised its national security level to ”critical”, meaning the risk of another attack was imminent, and increased security at airports. ”We are dealing with a long-term threat. It is not going to go away in the next few weeks or months,” Brown said.

Outside Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, police in white body suits searched houses in a town a short drive from the airport and set up forensic tents behind one building. Neighbours said two Asian men had moved into one of the houses a month ago, but had kept very much to themselves.

”I don’t remember seeing them at all,” said Mae Gordon (67). ”They were the only people around here you would never see.”

Britain has seen an increase in terrorism-related attacks since the September 11 strikes on the United States and since it joined US forces in invading Iraq in 2003. Some analysts believe the latest attacks may be designed to exert pressure on Britain to withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

‘Long battle’

Brown convened a meeting of top security chiefs to discuss measures to handle the first big test of his leadership. He also appeared on BBC television on Sunday to discuss events.

”Irrespective of Iraq, irrespective of Afghanistan, irrespective of what is happening in different parts of the world, we have an international organisation trying to inflict the maximum damage on civilian life in pursuit of a terrorist cause that is totally unacceptable to most people,” he said. ”Terrorism can never be justified as an act of faith. It is an act of evil in all circumstances.”

In the attack in Glasgow, 600km north of London, witnesses said two men intent on causing harm raced a green Jeep Cherokee into the glass doors of the airport terminal before dousing it in petrol and engulfing it in flames.

Police said the attack was linked to the thwarted London car bombs but did not say how. The London plot bore the hallmarks of a previous al-Qaeda plan to attack London with fuel-filled cars, and another militant plan to bomb a major nightclub.

The series of plots come almost two years since the July 7 2005 attacks on London’s transport system, when four British Islamists blew themselves up and killed 52 commuters. Three of the four bombers were from families who had come to Britain from the subcontinent.

British Muslim groups condemned the series of incidents and urged Muslims to cooperate with the authorities.

”We are utterly appalled by this sinister plot and commend the professionalism of the security services in aborting it,” the British Muslim Initiative said in a statement. — Reuters

Additional reporting by Luke Baker, Mark Trevelyan and David Clarke