History > 2007 > UK > Terrorism (III)

Bombs plot investigators

look at role of al-Qaida cells in Iraq

Friday July 6, 2007
Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor and Ian Cobain


MI5 and MI6 were yesterday investigating the role of al-Qaida cells in Iraq as they began to build up a picture of the foreign contacts of those involved in the plot to bomb London and Glasgow.

As police continued to question eight suspects - five from the Middle East and three believed to be from India - security and intelligence agencies were focusing on their international links, counter-terrorism officials said.

Officials close to the investigation declined to comment on a report by the American cable television network CNN that police had found a suicide note on one of the two men accused of trying to bomb Glasgow airport on Saturday.

Investigations are focused on "who knew what where", a security source said yesterday. "Al-Qaida in Iraq is probably in the frame," an official said. Militant groups elsewhere were also being investigated.

Even before the plot, the agencies had identified new tactics by the al-Qaida leadership, hiding in north-west Pakistan, and its affiliates, notably in Iraq. Whitehall sources say that al-Qaida networks have proved remarkably resilient. Al-Qaida in Iraq is better organised and has better relations with the core leadership since Abu Ayoub al-Masri, an Egyptian, took over from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian killed a year ago, according to the Iraqi government. Al-Qaida leaders have also delegated more authority to sympathetic cells in other countries, say officials.

A quarterly intelligence report prepared in April by the Joint Intelligence Analysis Centre (Jtac) warned while there was "no indication" of a specific threat to Britain, "we are aware that AQ-I (al-Qaida in Iraq) networks are active in the UK".

Jtac also highlighted the determination of Abd al-Hadi, the man accused by US authorities of being Osama bin Laden's emissary to al-Qaida in Iraq, to launch a terrorist attack in the UK. Hadi is said to have written a letter which said that such a strike should "ideally" take place before Tony Blair's departure, and "stressed the need to take care to ensure that the attack was successful and on a large scale".

Meanwhile, Scotland Yard detectives were trying to establish how many of the suspects came together in Cambridge. Bilal Talal Abdulla, an Iraqi doctor arrested after the Jeep in which he was a passenger ploughed into theterminal at Glasgow airport, studied English in Cambridge before moving to Paisley. Mohammed Jamil Asha, a Jordanian doctor who was arrested on the M6 with his wife on Saturday evening, was training at Addenbrooke's hospital in the city at the same time. Police are also making inquiries in the city about Kafeel Ahmed, 27, who is critically ill after dousing himself with petrol when the Glasgow car bomb failed to explode. He is believed to be the brother of Sabeel Ahmed, 26, an Indian doctor working at Halton General hospital in Runcorn, Cheshire who was arrested in Liverpool on Saturday.

    Bombs plot investigators look at role of al-Qaida cells in Iraq, NYT, 6.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2120109,00.html

The Guardian        p. 17        6.7.2007

3pm

'Internet jihadist' jailed for 10 years

Thursday July 5, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver and agencies

A man described as the "godfather of cyber-terrorism for al-Qaida" and two of his associates were today given prison sentences totalling 24 years.

The three were sentenced at Woolwich crown court after pleading guilty to inciting people to commit murder through their extremist websites. They had all changed their pleas earlier this week, two months into the trial.

The case is the first successful prosecution based entirely on the distribution of extremist material on the internet.

Moroccan-born computer expert Younis Tsouli, the ringleader, who ran a site that regularly featured beheadings, was imprisoned for 10 years.

For nearly two years until his arrest in October 2005, Tsouli, 23, was credited with transforming the internet into a sophisticated multimedia propaganda and recruiting machine for jihadists.

His skill made him the main distributor of terrorist material from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, al-Qaida in Iraq.

He uploaded guides to building suicide vests and dubbed himself the "jihadist James Bond", using the online ID "irhabi007", which includes the Arabic word for terrorist.

One post on the site, which referred to the July 7 2005 London bombings in which 52 people were murdered, said: "From the moment the infidels cry, I laugh."

On one Arab language message board, Tsouli posted CIA explosive manuals and US navy seal guides on sniper training. In May 2004, a video of the beheading of the US contract worker Nicholas Berg by a terrorist who was thought to be Zarqawi was posted by Tsouli. It was downloaded 500,000 times in the first 24 hours.

Co-defendant Tariq Al-Daour, who was also involved in a £1.8m fraud, was jailed for six-and-a-half years.

The third man in the dock, Waseem Mughal, was given a seven-and-a-half-year sentence.

Earlier this week, all three pleaded guilty to inciting another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the United Kingdom, which would, if committed in England and Wales, constitute murder.

Passing sentence today, Mr Justice Openshaw described the men as engaging in "cyber jihad", encouraging others to kill non-believers. "It would seem that internet websites have become an effective means of communicating such ideas," the judge said.

He added, however, that none of the three had carried out violent acts themselves. Referring to Tsouli, Judge Openshaw said: "He came no closer to a bomb or a firearm than a computer keyboard."

The judge said Tsouli should be deported back to Morocco after serving his sentence. He had come to the UK in 2001 with his family and had studied information technology and computer technology at Westminster College of Computing. Two months before his arrest he was granted indefinite leave to remain.

Mughal, a biochemistry graduate from the University of Leicester, ran the website of the university's Islamic society. Daour became a British citizen in May 2004 and was planning to study law.

Tsouli's downfall came in the autumn of 2005 when Bosnian police in Sarajevo arrested Mirsad Bektasevic, a 19-year-old Swedish citizen, and Cesur Abdulkadir, an 18-year-old Turkish national, on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack.

Mobile phone records led to arrests in the US, Canada, Denmark and the UK, including of Tsouli and his two co-defendants.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan police's counter terrorism command, said: "Detectives were faced with an enormous challenge - to decode and decipher a staggering quantity of computer data and websites. They should be justly proud of their efforts in this case."

Mr Clarke went on: "Tsouli, Mughal and Daour used stolen identities, false credit card details and hidden chatroom forums. Their terrorist tradecraft was sophisticated, but nevertheless defeated by this investigation."

    'Internet jihadist' jailed for 10 years, G, 5.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2119590,00.html

3.15pm update

Brown expands terror checks

on skilled migrants

Wednesday July 4, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent


Security checks on skilled migrants such as NHS workers will be stepped up in the wake of the London and Glasgow car bomb plots, Gordon Brown announced today.

Eight people who work for, or have links with, the health service are currently being questioned in connection with last week's attacks.

In his first session of prime minister's questions, Mr Brown also pledged that the government would expand its worldwide "watchlist" of potential terrorists.

Although there is little detail yet on what greater background checks will entail, the new security minister, Lord West, is to carry out an immediate review of NHS recruitment in the wake of the attacks, Mr Brown announced.

Yesterday the Department of Health insisted that vetting was purely the business of the employer - namely the hospital or trust offering contracts to oversees doctors. However, that process focuses predominantly on checking qualifications, identity and any criminal convictions.

Mr Brown told MPs: "Let me tell you what we will do. We will expand the watchlist ... We will expand the background checks that are being done where there are highly skilled migrant workers coming into this country. When people sponsor them, we will ask them to give us their background checks.

"Thirdly, as a result of what has happened in the NHS, I've asked Lord West, the new terrorism minister, to conduct an immediate review as to what arrangements we must make in relation to recruitment to the NHS because of what we know has happened over the last few days.

"Finally, we will want to sign new agreements with other countries round the world so we act together to deal with the potential terrorist threat and we are able to deport people to countries, where they should be, rather than in this country.

Although the new PM called for "unity" and a cross-party consensus on terror, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, pushed for both a new national border police and the use of telephone taps in terrorist trials.

Mr Brown agreed to look into the issue of a border police force and pointed out that a privy council review into the feasibility of using telephone intercept evidence had already been commissioned. However, he criticised the Tories for opposing ID cards - as do the Liberal Democrats.

"It is vitally important the message is sent out to the rest of the world that we will stand strong, steadfast and united in the face of terror," he said.

Mr Brown was also put on the spot by Tory calls for the banning of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

When the new prime minister pointed out he had only been in the job "five days", Mr Cameron pointed out the Home Office had commissioned an inquiry into the group two years ago.

It was left to the former home secretary, John Reid, to spare Mr Brown's blushes from the backbenches by revealing that the inquiry had not come up with sufficient evidence.

The Hizb ut-Tahrir organisation later put out a statement, saying: "The former home secretary, John Reid, today confirmed in parliament ... there has been no evidence whatsoever to link Hizb ut-Tahrir to terrorism or violence.

It continued: "We completely reject David Cameron's playing of politics with security and his baseless accusation that our organisation calls for the killing of Jews.

"His accusations are not surprising given that Hizb ut-Tahrir has been an ardent critic of the Zionist state, while Cameron has described himself as a Zionist. Perhaps Mr Cameron has not, this time, jumped onto a bandwagon, but onto a sinking ship."

    Brown expands terror checks on skilled migrants, G, 4.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2118328,00.html

The battle over government

that has raged since Magna Carta

Published: 04 July 2007
The Independent
By Ben Chu

Yesterday Mr Brown referred to the British Constitution as "unwritten". That is misleading. A more accurate description would be "un-codified". In common with the citizens of other countries, subjects of the British Crown enjoy certain legally prescribed rights and freedoms. And like the governments of other nations, British administrations are bound by the chains of law and convention.

The difference is that the various Royal Charters, Acts of Parliament and legal rulings that make up the framework of proper British governance have never been gathered and written down in a single legal document in the style of, for example, the Constitution of the US.

Up until the 19th century, the history of the British constitution was, in large part, the history of the struggle for power between the monarch and the aristocracy. In 1215 a coalition of disgruntled barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta (or Great Charter), left, guaranteeing the right for freemen to be judged, not by the king, but their peers. The monarch was also forced to pledge that "to no one will we deny or delay right or justice", a significant undertaking at a time when rulers enjoyed power unchecked by formal commitments.

The dispute over the limits of royal power rumbled on over the following centuries but it exploded again with great force in the 17th century during the reign of King Charles I. A period of turmoil culminated in the so-called "Glorious Revolution". In 1688, a collection of peers deposed James II and invited Prince William of Orange and his wife Mary to become joint sovereigns on the condition that they acquiesce to some rigid restrictions on the power of the monarchy and guarantees of the rights of parliament. This settlement was enshrined in the Bill of Rights, which guaranteed freedom of speech, frequent parliaments and free elections. This settlement, perhaps more than anything else before or since, was the basis for our system of parliamentary sovereignty. But still only a minority of rich men were entitled to vote. It took a succession of reform acts to widen the franchise.

    The battle over government that has raged since Magna Carta, I, 4.7.2007,
    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2733250.ece

The conspiracy

Mastermind based abroad

suspected of guiding plot

Two men held at Glasgow
believed to be behind failed London car bombs

Wednesday July 4, 2007
Guardian
Duncan Campbell, Severin Carrell, Helen Carter, Barbara McMahon, Karen McVeigh, Hugh Muir, Richard Norton-Taylor, Alexandra Topping and Alan Travis


The plot to mount car bomb attacks in Britain was hatched outside the UK, with the doctors allegedly involved linked to a ringleader or mastermind abroad, counter-terrorism officials believe. One theory is that the alleged plot was orchestrated by one or two jihadists who infiltrated the NHS and indoctrinated others.

It emerged last night that investigators suspect that the two men caught at Glasgow airport trying to ram a Jeep into the terminal building were also behind the failed attempt to detonate two car bombs in central London last Friday.

Sources also suggested that all known members of the cell had been accounted for. "There is not a huge manhunt," one well-placed official said. Though the terrorist threat level remains at "critical" there were indications that it would soon be downgraded to "severe", meaning an attack is highly likely but not imminent.

All eight people arrested have links with the NHS - seven are doctors or medical students and one worked as a laboratory technician. All entered the UK legally.

Intelligence sources last night declined to say where the "guiding hand" or mastermind behind the plot was based. It is likely, given the dates on which some of the suspects entered Britain, that the plot was hatched a year ago, or even earlier.

Though MI5 insists none of the suspects arrested in connection with the plot were under surveillance, the mobile phones detectives recovered from the would-be car bombs contained details that matched material on the security service database. Counter-terrorism officials say data from the phones and email traffic was checked on the database used by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, the government's eavesdropping centre. Connections were found linking that information and communications abroad, which enabled the police and security services to speed up their investigations in Britain.

"This linkage allowed the police to move quickly," said a source. The foreign intercepts included talk of jihad, an official added. Counter-terrorism officials say the links between members of the British-based cell were via the foreign intercepts. It is believed, for example, that Mohamed Haneef, the doctor arrested at Brisbane airport, had long conversations with one of the suspects arrested in Britain.

Security and intelligence sources said yesterday that no link had yet been made between the failed bomb attacks and al-Qaida. However, they say al-Qaida's tactics are more flexible than they were at the time of the 9/11 attacks and that their sympathisers are increasingly left to decide for themselves the means of attack.

Anti-terrorist officials suggested yesterday that the use of car bombs was a response to warnings to farmers and suppliers fertiliser - the favoured ingredient of previous terror plots - to report suspicious demands for large quantities of the product. The bombers turned to the more easily obtainable fuel and propane gas. The fact that the attacks were bungled suggests the perpetrators did not have the same expertise as British bombers, many of whom were trained in Pakistan.

Separate sources say the attack on Glasgow's airport terminal was intended as a suicide car bombing. It was the first time such an attack had been attempted in Britain. One source said the attack happened as the terrorists felt the police were closing in on them: "They felt the police were on to them; it was a bit of a panic attack."

It emerged yesterday that all three suspects arrested in Scotland after the Glasgow attack, including the alleged passenger of the Jeep Cherokee used in the attack, a hospital doctor called Bilal Abdulla, were secretly transferred to Paddington Green high security police station in London on Monday night.

The driver of the car, Lebanese doctor Khalid Ahmed, is in a critical condition at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley with severe burns. The decision to transfer the other suspects, two men thought to be Saudi trainee doctors working at the hospital in Paisley, was taken on Monday afternoon by the head of the Scottish prosecution service, Eilish Angiolini, QC.

One of the men arrested in Scotland told police he had left a hired car in the car park at Forth Road mosque. Early yesterday morning police bomb disposal experts carried out a series of controlled explosions on the silver Vauxhall Vectra. It was then taken away for forensic examination.

In a separate development, two Asian men were being questioned by detectives in Lancashire last night after they were arrested on a Blackburn industrial estate following a reported delivery of around 10 large gas canisters.

Passengers at Heathrow were delayed for up to five hours yesterday after an alert caused by a suspect package, which proved to be a false alarm.

    Mastermind based abroad suspected of guiding plot, G, 4.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117874,00.html

Born in Aylesbury,

shaped in Baghdad,

the would-be bomber

Wednesday July 4, 2007
Guardian
Ian Cobain and Alexandra Topping


At al-Mansour high school and later at Baghdad College, Bilal Talal Abdulla was known as an earnest young scholar whose fervent Islamic faith seemed at times to border on the over-zealous. His mother was apparently afraid to remove her headscarf in his presence. And one classmate recalls an incident when he tried to destroy a crucifix dropped by a Christian student in a classroom. According to the classmate, he never again spoke to those who insisted on returning it to its owner.

Although raised in Baghdad, Dr Abdulla was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, where his father, also a doctor, worked. He has several relatives in Cambridge, some of them associated with the university. In Baghdad, however, he is remembered as a figure from whom classmates kept their distance. "By high school he was known as a Wahhabi," said one former classmate. "He was a Sunni extremist."

It is unclear what checks were made on Dr Abdulla before he was allowed to settle in the UK and apply to work at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley. Last night, however, he was in custody at Paddington Green police station where he was being questioned over his suspected role in both the London and Glasgow attacks. He was in the flaming Jeep which rammed Glasgow airport on Saturday and sources said police also suspect he was one of the men who brought the failed car bombs into central London on Friday. The Home Office refused to disclose whether it had carried out any inquiries about him.

It was also unclear whether checks were made on the backgrounds of the seven other people who have been arrested over the attempted car bombs. Five are doctors or medical students working at NHS hospitals, one has worked as a hospital lab technician, and one arrested in Australia, named last night as Mohamed Haneef, previously worked at a UK hospital.

Counter-terrorist officials said they suspected one or two jihadists with medical qualifications may have been sent to the UK and instructed to recruit accomplices. There was also evidence from phone records that a "guiding hand" may be at large outside the country.

Dr Abdulla, 27, was arrested on Saturday after a Jeep Cherokee in which he was a passenger smashed into the main terminal at Glasgow airport. Eyewitnesses described how he and the driver, Khalid Ahmed, clambered from the vehicle shouting "Allah". The Jeep was laden with propane gas cylinders and petrol cans but failed to detonate.

Mr Ahmed, a fellow doctor understood to be Lebanese, doused himself in petrol and set himself ablaze. He is in a critical condition at the Royal Alexandra, where Dr Abdulla has worked for 11 months.

Dr Abdulla graduated from medical school in Baghdad in 2004, but told his colleagues in Paisley he was Jordanian. Reports said that he was about to be disciplined for spending time visiting Arabic websites while on duty. When he was named as a suspect on Monday, one colleague is said to have burst into tears because she felt she should have warned police about his suspicious behaviour.

Detectives were questioning his colleagues yesterday, hoping to discover more about his contacts. Inquiries were also being made in Cambridge, where he registered as a voter in 2001 while living in a house owned by a local mosque, and where in 2004 he briefly rented a flat. His landlord recalled him as a quiet, deeply religious man. "He was only here for a couple of months then he was off abroad again."

Shiraz Maher, who knew Dr Abdulla three years ago from his connections in Cambridge, told BBC's Newsnight programme that his friend had become radicalised by the destruction in Iraq. "One of his best friends was killed by a Shia militia gang in Iraq," Mr Maher, a former member of the radical Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir, said. Dr Abdulla had a number of videos featuring the former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Dr Abdulla's alleged involvement in the attacks raises the possibility that al-Qaida in Iraq, the organisation headed by al-Zarqawi until his death in a US air strike a year ago, may have been behind the plot.

A document prepared this year by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, and leaked to a Sunday paper, highlighted concerns that Osama bin Laden's main emissary to al-Qaida in Iraq was anxious to attack the UK around the time that Tony Blair stood down as prime minister .

Dr Abdulla's involvement in the Glasgow attack highlights the difficulty facing the Home Office in their attempts to screen doctors from some countries. Those entering the UK with work permits or under the high-skills migrant programme are checked against the criminal records database and checks are sometimes made abroad, but officials accept such checks are unlikely to yield worthwhile results in Iraq.

    Born in Aylesbury, shaped in Baghdad, the would-be bomber, G, 4.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117842,00.html

Community reaction

Muslims must help police more,

leaders urge

· Terrorists are enemies of us all, says MCM chief
· Comments signal policy of closer cooperation

Wednesday July 4, 2007
The Guardian
Hugh Muir

Britain's most influential Muslim umbrella group yesterday signalled a significant shift in policy as it urged its communities to play a key and potentially decisive role in the fight against terrorism.

Declaring that "condemnation is not enough", leaders of the Muslim Council of Britain, which has 400 affiliate organisations, voiced its most robust message yet and appealed to all Muslims to work hand in hand with the police. The message carries dangers for the MCB which has been criticised by radical activists for being too close to government and the establishment.

But Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, the MCB's secretary general, said the current crisis meant that issues of conflict between the government, police and Muslim communities - who have clashed in the past over anti-terrorist incidents and foreign policy - needed to be put to one side.

"When the house is on fire, the concern must be not to blame each other but to put the fire out. Our country is under threat level critical." He added: "Those who seek to deliberately kill or maim innocent people are the enemies of us all. There is no cause whatsoever that could possibly justify such barbarity."

He said the police and security services "deserve the fullest support and cooperation from each and every sector of our society, including all Muslims".

The MCB has called a meeting in London on Saturday of key imams and activists from all over the country to discuss what Muslim communities can do to confront the threat and to discuss whether more should have been done in the past.

"It is our Islamic duty not only to utterly and totally condemn such evil actions but to provide all the necessary support to prevent such atrocities from taking place," said Dr Bari.

Inayat Bunglawala, the MCB's assistant general secretary, said anyone with information should not feel conflicted. He said the MCB was confident that affiliates would back the new stance. "The overwhelming majority of Muslims will understand the predicament our nation is in. The risk is not that we will lose affiliates. We are more likely to gain them."

Though shocked by the failed terrorist attacks on London and Glasgow, there are signs that the MCB and government are seeking to seize the moment. Relations between Muslim leaders and the Blair government deteriorated amid concerns that the prime minister, former home secretary John Reid and former communities secretary Ruth Kelly gave succour to those who sought to blame the wider Muslim communities for terrorism.

But Dr Bari was quick to praise Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith, the new home secretary for the "calm and reassuring tone" of their comments since the weekend's attacks. "They made clear that it was unacceptable to hold any one faith group responsible for the actions of a few," he said. He also praised Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister who provided high profile reassurance to Muslims north of the border.

The unfolding events, though horrific, may well strengthen the hand of moderate Muslim opinion. One source said: "There is little room for manoeuvre for those who have previously been in denial or have clung to conspiracy theories."

Anti-terrorist chiefs have been quick to stress the need for communities to provide them with the intelligence they need to find and monitor suspects. But close liaison between Muslim leaders and the authorities is also seen as crucial in the battle for "hearts and minds" to stop a whole new generation of young people becoming radicalised.

The rallying call gained broad approval from Muslims shopping and trading amid the bustle of Whitechapel market in east London. "I think the MCB have got it absolutely right," said Abdul Ali, 30, as he tended his jewellery stall. "If I had information I would go to the police. The people killed in a terrorist attack could be my son or my sister."

A young woman in her 30s, her head covered, said: "We all know these people have nothing to do with Islam. They are extremists just like the BNP." But two men smoking by an electrical stall said some Muslims had grievances that only government could address. "They say it is because of Iraq and some say it is because of the Afghan attacks. Those in power will have to solve those problems first."

    Muslims must help police more, leaders urge, G, 4.7.2007,
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117870,00.html

The Australian connection

Suspect arrested

at Brisbane airport

used to be doctor

at NHS hospital in Liverpool

Wednesday July 4, 2007
Guardian
Barbara McMahon in Brisbane,
Maseeh Rahman in Delhi, Helen Carter and Duncan Campbell

A former NHS doctor was being questioned in Brisbane last night as the car-bomb terrorist investigation was extended to Australia.

Mohamed Haneef, a 27-year-old Indian-born doctor who had worked at Halton hospital in Liverpool until 2005, was detained at Brisbane airport late on Monday night as he was about to board a flight to India and was held in custody overnight. He had bought a one-way ticket to New Delhi via Malaysia.

He worked at the same hospital as Sabeel Ahmed, one of the suspects who was arrested in Liverpool at the weekend in connection with the car bomb plot. Reports in Australia suggest authorities there were alerted about Dr Haneef by UK sources after he was linked to a mobile phone connected to one of the suspects.

Australian police commissioner Mick Keelty said: "We are alleging that Dr Haneef was connected to a terrorist group."

In India, his family were adamant that he would not have been involved in any plot. "My son cannot be involved in the terror plot," his mother told an Indian news television channel. "He is an extremely God-fearing boy."

His sister added: "He looked after me after our father's death. He was too happy a person to be involved in such a thing."

Australian police have now searched Dr Haneef's apartment and removed a computer.

His workplace area at the Gold Coast hospital in Southport was also inspected by detectives as colleagues expressed their surprise at his detention. Speaking outside the apartment block where Dr Haneef rented his one-bedroom flat, his landlord, Steve Bosher, said the doctor had been living there with his wife but she had returned to India earlier this year. It is understood she gave birth to a child about 10 days ago.

"I never saw him with anyone, he was very quiet," said Mr Bosher.

According to the Queensland Medical Practitioners register, Dr Haneef graduated from the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in India in 2002 and started work at the Gold Coast hospital on September 4 last year as a junior doctor.

He was appointed after responding to a recruitment advertisement in the British Medical Journal and was being sponsored by the Queensland Medical Authority.

He has been working under Australia's 457 visa programme which allows migrant workers to come to the country for temporary employment when vacancies cannot be filled locally.

A second foreign-born doctor, who also arrived in Australia from Liverpool and was not named, was released last night. Mr Keelty said: "He is free to go. There is nothing there to charge that person."

Andrew Schwartz, president of the Australian Doctors Trained Overseas Association, said it was perfectly normal for foreign-born doctors to be recruited to work in Australia, saying that of the country's 50,000 doctors, 20,000 were foreign-born. "The public health system would absolutely collapse without them," he said.

A spokeswoman for Halton hospital in Runcorn, Cheshire, confirmed that two of the doctors who were arrested during the anti-terror raids in Liverpool and Australia had both worked there.

"I can confirm that Mohamed Haneef, who was arrested in Brisbane, worked at Halton hospital," said the spokeswoman. "He was a locum registrar there until 2005. The suspect who was arrested in Liverpool worked across Warrington hospital and Halton hospitals." The second arrested man has not yet been named.

In Bangalore, where his family now lives, Dr Haneef was described as "quiet by nature but academically brilliant".

A neighbour, Shameer Ahmed, told the Times of India that, as a child, he attended a state Urdu-speaking school in Mudigere, a small town around 190 miles west of Bangalore in the Chikmagalur district of the southern state of Karnataka.

His father, Abdul Sami Khalil, who was a teacher, died in a road accident eight years ago, and the family then moved to Bangalore. After studying in high school at Mudigere, Dr Haneef took his pre-university certification course at SDM College at Ujire in the neighbouring Dakshina Kannada district.

He did his medical training at Dr BR Ambedkar Medical College which is affiliated to Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, graduating in 2002. According to the university registrar yesterday, he was a very impressive student in his early years studying medicine but his results were less impressive in his later years.

    Suspect arrested at Brisbane airport used to be doctor at NHS hospital in Liverpool, G, 4.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117867,00.html

Family say arrested couple

were not extremists


Wednesday July 4, 2007
The Guardian
Hugh Muir


As the questioning of Mohammed Asha and his wife, Marwa, continued yesterday, their arrests on the M6 motorway in Cheshire on Saturday prompted incredulity among those who knew them 2,000 miles away in Jordan.

Her family denied she had links to terrorism. "Marwa is a very educated person and she read many British novels to know England better, a country she liked so much," her father, Yunis Da'na said.

He said events of the past two days had caused pain and confusion. All attempts to contact his daughter - a laboratory assistant - since her arrest had failed. "I'm so worried about Marwa, Mohammed and my grandson, Anas," he told the Associated Press.

The Jordanian authorities also voiced surprise about the arrest of Dr Asha, 26. They said he had no intelligence record or previous criminal background in Jordan.

Dr Asha's brother Ahmed also sought to defend his 26-year-old sibling, saying he "is not a Muslim extremist, and he's not a fanatic". Family pictures show that Dr Asha has grown a fuller beard during his time working in the UK.

However, Azmi Mahafzah, Dr Asha's instructor at the University of Jordan medical school, said he knew him throughout his studies and during his training from 1998 to 2004 and never gained the impression that he was particularly religious. "He has no prejudices. He is not a fanatic type of person," he said. "I wouldn't believe that he would risk a very bright future in medicine for going into such things." Aseel al-Omari, another colleague of Dr Asha's in Amman, said she had known him for a decade and that they both attended a school for gifted students. She said the school, founded 14 years ago by Jordan's Queen Noor to promote religious tolerance, was mixed - a rarity in Jordan's conservative Muslim society.

"All I can say about his personality over this time is that he was an ambitious medical student looking for success in his career," she said. "He had liberal thinking. ... He was a good Muslim but never a terrorist or involved in such activities."

    Family say arrested couple were not extremists, G, 4.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117854,00.html

7.30pm update

Two bomb suspects

held in Australia and UK

had worked at same hospital

· Liverpool and Brisbane suspects linked by Cheshire hospital
· Reports that same men did London and Glasgow attacks
· US 'had prior warnings about Glasgow'

Tuesday July 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver, James Sturcke and agencies

A doctor arrested in Australia over the UK car bomb conspiracy had worked in the same hospital as another doctor who is being held by British police, officials said today.

A spokesman for Halton hospital in Runcorn, Cheshire, said the 27-year-old man detained as he tried to board a flight to India from Brisbane airport had been a locum doctor at the hospital in 2005.

A 26-year-old man arrested in Liverpool late on Saturday also worked at the hospital, the spokesman said. Both men are thought to be Indian.

Tonight, police refused to confirm reports that they believe the same men who left two car bombs in London on Friday also carried out the attack at Glasgow airport the following day.

Sky News said the men alleged to have carried out the Jeep attack - one of whom is understood to be an Iraqi-trained doctor, Bilal Abdulla - could have been rushed into acting knowing that the police were on their tail.

"We don't comment on ongoing investigations," a Met police spokeswoman said. Anthony Glees, director at the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, told Channel 4 News that most of the eight being held were previously known to MI5.

The arrest of the 27-year-old doctor in Brisbane came after Australian police were alerted by UK authorities thought to have been following up leads from phone records.

The man had been working at a hospital on Queensland's Gold Coast since September last year, the state's premier, Peter Beattie, said. He said the doctor, who has not yet been named by police, had been based in Liverpool when he successfully answered an advert in the British Medical Journal in March 2006 for work in Australia. The Australian prime minister, John Howard, told reporters that a second doctor working at the Gold Coast hospital was also being interviewed by police but had not been arrested. Mr Beattie said the second doctor had also been recruited from Liverpool.

As Britain remained on its highest state of alert, flights from Heathrow were disrupted this afternoon after a security scare led to Terminal 4 being partially evacuated. A passenger told the BBC that she was just about to board her flight when travellers were told to leave the terminal following a report of a suspicious package.

An airport spokeswoman said passengers were being security-screened for a second time. British Airways said it had cancelled all of its European departures from the terminal for the rest of the day and all long-haul departures until 9pm. Planes were arriving at the terminal as normal.

The three men detained in Scotland after a flaming Jeep was driven into the Glasgow airport terminal building were today transferred to London's Paddington Green police station for questioning.

Scotland's most senior law officer has granted jurisdiction to the Metropolitan police's counter-terrorism command, which is linking the airport attack to the failed car bombs discovered in London on Friday.

Police in Scotland are also investigating a possible sighting of the Jeep Cherokee used in the airport attack. They received a report that it had been parked at an industrial estate in Dumfries several days ago. One of the firms on the estate is understood to be a stockist of gas cylinders, which were found in all three vehicles.

In Glasgow, police carried out controlled explosions on a car outside a mosque in the city at about 5am today. The car, which has now been removed for forensic analysis, was linked to the Glasgow airport attack.

Officers had waited for prayers at the mosque, which is not linked to the inquiry, to finish before looking at the car. The bomb squad was called in as a precaution and police had no information that a device was inside.

Police suspect that the leader of the terror cell is one of the five doctors held in the UK who were working or training for the NHS, Mohammed Asha, a 26-year-old neurosurgeon who lives in Staffordshire. Dr Asha and his 27-year-old wife were arrested on Saturday driving on the M6 near Sandbach in Cheshire.

Sources confirmed that Dr Abdulla, 27, is alleged to have been a passenger in the Jeep that smashed into Glasgow airport.

Another man alleged to have been in the Jeep is receiving treatment at Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley, near Glasgow. He is critically ill with 90% burns. Sources told the Guardian that the injured man, seen dousing himself in petrol during Saturday's attack, is Lebanese.

The Royal Alexandra has emerged as the focus of investigations.

Seven of the eight people arrested so far are foreign-born nationals, including an Iraqi doctor trained in Baghdad, a Jordanian neurosurgeon, an Indian medic, and the Lebanese man. But counter-terrorism officials said last night they believed British terrorists still at large were involved in the car bomb conspiracy. At least one of the plotters is a naturalised Briton, the sources said.

In other developments today, ABC News reported that US law enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago warning of a possible terror attack in Glasgow against "airport infrastructure or aircraft".

An unnamed senior official told the US broadcaster that the intelligence led to the assignment of federal air marshals to flights into and out of Glasgow and Prague in the Czech Republic.

The Strathclyde police chief constable, Willie Rae, has said his force had been given no warning of Saturday's airport attack.

    Two bomb suspects held in Australia and UK had worked at same hospital, NYT, 3.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117352,00.html

3.15pm update

Australian police arrest man

over UK car bombs

· Doctor held at Brisbane airport had worked in UK
· Controlled explosion of car at Glasgow mosque
· US 'had prior warnings of Glasgow attack'

Tuesday July 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver, James Sturcke and agencies

A doctor arrested in Australia in connection with the UK car bomb conspiracy had worked in the same Cheshire hospital as another medic held by British police, officials said today.

A spokesman for Halton hospital in Runcorn said the 27-year-old man detained as he attempted to board a flight to India from Brisbane airport was a locum doctor at the hospital in 2005. A 26-year-old man arrested in Liverpool late on Saturday also worked at the hospital, he said. Both men are thought to be Indian.

In other developments, three men detained in Scotland after a flaming Jeep was driven into the Glasgow airport terminal building were transferred to London's Paddington Green police station. Scotland's most senior law officer, the Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini, has granted jurisdiction to the Metropolitan police's counter-terrorism command, who are linking the airport attack to two failed car bombs discovered in London on Friday.

Flights from Heathrow were disrupted this afternoon after a security alert led to Terminal 4 being partially evacuated. A passenger told the BBC that she was just about to board her flight when travellers were told to leave the terminal following a report of a suspicious package.

An airport spokeswoman said passengers were being rescreened and there would be some disruption to flights.

There was also a brief security alert this morning in west London when a suspicious package outside Hammersmith tube station was destroyed in a controlled explosion. The alert was then called off.

Meanwhile, police in Scotland were investigating a possible sighting of the Jeep Cherokee used in the airport attack. They received a report that it was parked at the Heathall industrial estate in Dumfries a number of days ago. One of the firms on the estate is understood to be a stockist of gas cylinders, which were found in all three vehicles.

The 27-year-old man arrested in Brisbane was the eighth person to be held as part of the counter-terror inquiry, and the sixth doctor. He was arrested by Australian police who had been alerted by UK authorities thought to be following up leads from phone records.

The man had been working at a hospital on Queensland's Gold Coast since September last year, the state's premier, Peter Beattie, said.

He said the doctor, who has not yet been named by police, had been based in Liverpool when he successfully answered an advert in the British Medical Journal in March 2006 for work in Australia.

The man, who reportedly graduated as a doctor in 2002 at a university in Bangalore, was in Australia on a temporary visa.

Mr Beattie said: "The doctor was regarded by the hospital as, in many senses, a model citizen - excellent references and so on."

He said the doctor had not resigned before attempting to leave the country.

The Australian prime minister, John Howard, told reporters that a second doctor working at the Gold Coast hospital was also being interviewed by police, but had not been arrested. Mr Beattie said the second doctor had also been recruited from Liverpool.

Australian officers executed a number of search warrants across Queensland overnight, including at the Gold Coast hospital.

Investigations were also moving forward today in Glasgow, where controlled explosions were carried out on a car outside a mosque in the city at around 5am.

The car, which has now been removed for forensic analysis, was linked to Saturday's attack on Glasgow airport in which a burning Jeep rammed into doors of the building. Strathclyde police said the mosque on Forth Street, in the south of the city, was not linked to the inquiry. Officers had waited for prayers at the mosque to finish before looking at the car. The bomb squad was called in as a precaution and there was no intelligence that a device was inside.

Police currently suspect that the leader of the terror cell is one of the five doctors held in the UK who were working or training for the NHS, Mohammed Asha, a 26-year-old neurosurgeon who lives in Staffordshire. Dr Asha and his 27-year-old wife were arrested on Saturday on the M6 near Sandbach, Cheshire.

Two controlled explosions were carried out on parked cars yesterday at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley, just outside Glasgow, after residential accommodation used by medical staff had been searched.

Sources confirmed that an Iraqi doctor, Bilal Abdulla, 27, is alleged to have been a passenger in the Jeep that smashed into the terminal at Glasgow airport.

Another man alleged to have been in the Jeep is receiving treatment at Royal Alexandra hospital. He is critically ill with 90% burns. Sources told the Guardian that the injured man, seen dousing himself in petrol during Saturday's attack, is Lebanese.

Seven of the eight people arrested so far are foreign-born nationals, including an Iraqi doctor trained in Baghdad, a Jordanian neurosurgeon, an Indian medic, and the Lebanese man. However, counter-terrorism officials said last night they believed British terrorists still at large were involved in the car bomb conspiracy. At least one of the plotters is a naturalised Briton, the sources said.

In other developments today, it emerged that US law enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago which warned of a possible terror attack in Glasgow against "airport infrastructure or aircraft", according to ABC News.

An unnamed senior official told the US broadcaster that the intelligence led to the assignment of federal air marshals to flights into and out of both Glasgow and Prague in the Czech Republic.

The Strathclyde police chief constable, Willie Rae, has said his force had been given no warning of Saturday's airport attack. During a press conference after the incident, he said: "There was no prior intelligence to suggest that Scotland was going to be the target of a terror attack."

A spokesman for the Scottish Executive maintained that position yesterday.

It is understood that some of the suspects have been identified from an analysis of mobile phone records. A Mercedes used in Friday's failed car bombing of central London is believed to have started its journey in Glasgow. One source said: "Scotland is the hub."

The Muslim Council of Britain today condemned the terror plot.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, the MCB secretary general, told a news conference in east London that it was "Islamic duty" both to provide support to help stop such attacks and to unequivocally condemn terrorism. "There is no cause whatsoever that could possibly justify such barbarity," he said.

Elsewhere, Osama Saeed, the Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, said he feared a "rising hostility" towards the Asian community in Scotland. This morning an Asian-owned shop in the Riddrie area of Glasgow was left burnt out after it was rammed by a car that was then set ablaze.

· Two men have been arrested in Blackburn under the Terrorism Act, Lancashire police said this afternoon. A spokesman said it was too early to say whether the arrests were linked to the London and Glasgow car bomb incidents.

    Australian police arrest man over UK car bombs, G, 3.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117352,00.html

4.15pm

Two arrested

on suspicion of terror offences

Tuesday July 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker and agencies

Two men were today arrested in Lancashire on suspicion of terror offences.

It was not immediately known whether their arrests, which happened in Blackburn, were linked to the recent attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow.

Both men - neither of whom have been named - were arrested at an industrial estate at around midday. Lancashire police said they were being held at a police station on suspicion of offences under the Terrorism Act 2000.

"At this time, it is too early to confirm whether or not these arrests are linked to recent events in London or Glasgow," a spokeswoman for the force said.

According to reports, police raided a unit at the Furthergate Industrial Estate after two consignments of gas canisters were delivered there earlier today.

The Lancashire Evening Telegraph newspaper said police raided the unit after a tip-off, and the Metropolitan police's anti-terrorism unit was not involved.

Police refused to comment further.

    Two arrested on suspicion of terror offences, G, 3.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117586,00.html

3.45pm update

Muslim Council of Britain

declares 'condemnation is not enough'

Tuesday July 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Hugh Muir

Britain's most influential Muslim umbrella group today signalled a major shift in policy as it urged its communities to play a key and potentially decisive role in the fight against terrorism.

Declaring that "condemnation is not enough", leaders of the Muslim Council of Britain, which has 400 affiliate organisations, voiced its most robust message yet and appealed to all Muslims to work hand in hand with the police.

The message carries dangers for the MCB, which has been criticised by radical activists for being too close to the government and the establishment.

But today Muhammad Abdul Bari, the MCB secretary general, said the current crisis meant that issues of conflict between the government, the police and Muslim communities - who have clashed in the past over anti-terrorist incidents and foreign policy - needed to be put to one side.

"When the house is on fire, the concern must be not to blame each other but to put the fire out. Our country is under threat-level critical.

"Those who seek to deliberately kill or maim innocent people are the enemies of us all. There is no cause whatsoever that could possibly justify such barbarity."

He said the police and security services "deserve the fullest support and cooperation from each and every sector of our society, including all Muslims."

The MCB has called a meeting in London on Saturday of key imams and activists from all over the country to discuss what Muslim communities can do to confront the threat and to discuss whether more should have been done in the past.

"We hope to discuss how we can work better with other partners, including the police, to try to undermine and defeat the terrorists who seek to attack us," said Dr Bari.

"It is our Islamic duty not only to utterly and totally condemn such evil actions but to provide all the necessary support to prevent such atrocities from taking place."

Inayat Bunglawala, the MCB's assistant general secretary, said anyone with information should not feel conflicted.

"There must be no hesitation in coming forward," he said. "Clearly we face a threat from extremists who happen to be Muslim."

Mr Bunglawala said the group was confident that affiliates would back the new stance.

"The overwhelming majority of Muslims will understand the predicament our nation is in. The risk is not that we will lose affiliates. We are more likely to gain them."

Though shocked by the failed terrorist attacks on London and Glasgow, there are signs that both the MCB and the government are seeking to seize the moment.

Relations between Muslim leaders and the Blair government deteriorated amid concerns that the prime minister, the former home secretary John Reid and the former communities secretary Ruth Kelly gave succour to those who sought to blame the wider Muslim communities for terrorism.

But Dr Bari was quick to praise Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith, the new home secretary, for the "calm and reassuring tone" of their comments since the weekend's attacks.

"They made clear that it was unacceptable to hold any one faith group responsible for the actions of a few," he said.

He also praised Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, who provided high-profile reassurance to Muslims north of the border.

This approach, though criticised by some newspapers, has allowed the MCB to call for a period of soul searching without facing new accusations of pandering to hostile politicians.

One official privately described the events and the political reaction to them as a "line in the sand moment".

The unfolding events, though horrific, may well strengthen the hand of moderate Muslim opinion.

One source said: "There is little room for manoeuvre for those who have previously been in denial or have clung to conspiracy theories. People have been able to see for themselves what happened. That could be important."

Anti-terrorist chiefs have been quick to stress the need for communities to provide them with the intelligence they need to find and monitor suspects.

But close liaison between Muslim leaders and the authorities is also seen as crucial in the battle to stop a whole new generation of young people becoming radicalised.

Daud Abdullah, the MCB deputy secretary general said: "We accept there is a degree of extremism and radicalisation taking place in the community. This is a long-term problem."

Muslim Council of Britain declares 'condemnation is not enough', G, 3.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117530,00.html

11.45am

Britain bans two more Islamist groups

Tuesday July 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker

The government is to ban two extreme Islamist groups accused of carrying out terrorist attacks in south Asia, ministers announced today.

Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi would be added to the list of organisations proscribed under the Terrorism Act. The additions were unconnected with the attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow, a Home Office statement said.

The minister for counter-terrorism and security, Tony McNulty, published a draft order in parliament today. Once passed, it will be an offence to belong to or encourage support for either group.

"As events over the last few days have shown only too clearly, the threat we face from terrorism remains real and serious," Mr McNulty said in a statement.

"Proscription powers are a key tool in the fight against terrorism, creating a hostile environment in which terrorists find it increasingly difficult to operate, whether in this country or abroad."

Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh is already banned in that country, where it seeks to impose strict Islamic law. It has claimed responsibility for attacks in Bangladesh, including a wave of bombings in 2005 that killed at least 30 people. The group's leader, Shaikh Abdur Rahman, and his deputy were among six people hanged in March for their role in the violence.

Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi is active in tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The group "regularly attacks coalition and Afghan government forces in Afghanistan and provides direct support to al-Qaida and the Taliban", according to the draft order.

The group was blamed for a suicide bombing that killed 44 Pakistani military cadets in November 2006.

Thus far, 44 primarily Islamist organisations have been banned in the UK, along with 14 groups in Northern Ireland outlawed under earlier legislation (see the full Home Office list).

    Britain bans two more Islamist groups, G, 3.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117456,00.html

Not in our name

July 3, 2007
12:00 PM
The Guardian
Asim Siddiqui

The events of the last few days have been sobering for us all. The response from some UK Muslim groups (influenced by Islamist thinking) is still largely to blame foreign policy (undoubtedly an exacerbating influence but not the cause), rather than marching "not in my name" in revulsion against terrorist acts committed in Islam's name. By blaming foreign policy they try to divert pressure off themselves from the real need to tackle extremism being peddled within. Diverting attention away from the problems within Muslim communities and blaming others - especially the west - is always more popular than the difficult task of self-scrutiny. And what part of foreign policy do the Islamists want us to change to tackle terrorism? Withdrawal from Iraq?

The UK presence on the ground in Iraq is minuscule compared to the US. We currently have 5,500 troops from 40,000 at the start of the invasion. We will reduce them further to 5,000 by the end of the summer. The bulk of which will be located near Basra airport in a supporting role. Next year will likely see the numbers dwindle even further. Our troop presence is far more symbolic than military. It provides the Americans with their "coalition of the willing". The US, by contrast, is the only serious occupier in the country with over 160,000 troops. The government will not (and cannot) admit it, but we have been in withdrawal mode since the end of the war.

And once we've left Iraq, will they be satisfied? Of course not. Their list of grievances is endless: Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Burma ... so long as the world is presented as one where the west is forever at war with Islam and Muslims there is nothing we can do to appease the terrorists and those who share their world view. Instead it is this extremist world view that must change.

Take for example the idea that radical Islamists are concerned about Muslim life (let's ignore human life in general for a moment). Where is their outrage at the 400,000 Muslims slaughtered in Darfur? Where are the marches and calls for action against this ongoing genocide? Where is the "Muslim anger" boiling up amongst British Islamists? It is nowhere to be seen because the Darfurians have been massacred by fellow Muslims, not by the west. Hence it does not appear on the Islamist radar screen as a "grievance". Such is the moral bankruptcy of this ideology.

No, it's not foreign policy that's the main driver in combating the terrorists; it is their mindset. The radical Islamist ideology needs to be exposed to young Muslims for what it really is. A tool for the introduction of a medieval form of governance that describes itself as an "Islamic state" that is violent, retrogressive, discriminatory, a perversion of the sacred texts and a totalitarian dictatorship.

When the IRA was busy blowing up London, there would have been little point in Irish "community leaders" urging "all" citizens to cooperate with the police equally when it was obvious the problem lay specifically within Irish communities. Likewise for Muslim "community leaders" to condemn terrorism is a no-brainer. What is required is for those that claim to represent and have influence among young British Muslims to proactively counter the extremist Islamist narrative. That is the biggest challenge for British Muslim leadership over the next five to 10 years. It is because they are failing to rise to this challenge that the government feels it needs to act by further eroding our civil liberties with anti-terror legislation to get the state to do what Muslims should be doing themselves. If British Muslim groups focus on grassroots de-radicalisation then this will provide civil liberty groups the space they need to argue against any further anti-terror legislation.

Of course I would like to see changes in our foreign policy and have marched on the streets (with thousands of non-Muslims) in protest on many occasions. But blaming foreign policy in the face of suicide attacks is not only tactless but a cop-out that fails to tackle extremism, fails to promote an ethical foreign policy and fails to protect our civil liberties.

    Not in our name, G, 3.7.2007, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/asim_siddiqui/2007/07/not_in_our_name.html

'Islamist' is the word for these terrorists

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 03/07/2007
The Daily Telegraph
By Denis MacShane

Why consult the crystal ball when you can read the book? Bevin's epithet is more than ever appropriate as Britain wakes up to the beginning of a long combat with the Islamist ideologies that send young men to kill and maim our citizens.

The calm, rational, determined and unfussed response of the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, as well as sombre language from the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is a welcome change after the theatricalities of declaring war on terrorism, or instant consultation committees whose members are keener to denounce Britain's foreign policy than ask hard questions about the thought processes that guide the suicide and car bombers.

Six weeks ago, David Cameron wrote an article in the Observer criticising those who used the word "Islamist" to describe the ideological roots of the terrorist threat. Yet "Islamist" is an accurate description of a global ideology that has been slowly incubating for decades. It took 69 years between the writing of the Communist Manifesto and the imposition of Bolshevik terror on Russia after 1917. Hitler's hatred of Jews was derived from writings and ideologues active before he was born. The Islamist equivalent of Marx's revolutionary appeal can be found in the writing of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, with a growing presence in Egypt, as well as off-shoots such as Hamas and a European network, including prominent members of the Muslim Council of Britain.

advertisementWriting in the 1930s, Hasan al-Banna declared: "The Koran is our Constitution. Jihad is Our Way. Martyrdom is Our Desire." At a stroke, the history of modernity that is based on separation of faith and democracy, church and state, politicians and priests was overturned. Today, it is al-Qa'eda and the myriad Islamist outfits from Indonesia to Britain who are inspired by Islamist ideology to carry out evil acts.

These are repudiated by decent Muslims everywhere. I spend more time in mosques than in churches in my constituency of Rotherham, where 10,000 Muslim citizens live. Their imams and members of mosque councils are men of peace. They teach their children to recite the Koran, just as I learnt to recite the Latin mass as an altar boy. British Muslims know the difference between their faith and the ideologies of Islamism. For Mr Cameron to deny the concept of Islamism would have al-Banna and all the other founding fathers of Islamism laughing in their graves.

But measured and impressive as the Government's response (and, to be fair, Mr Cameron's) have been to the attempted atrocities in London and Glasgow, the fact is that the Labour Government, Whitehall and the entire political-media class in Britain have been slow to wake up to the need for an intellectual-ideological confrontation with Islamism.

I experienced this first-hand when, in November 2003, as Europe minister, I made a speech after Islamist terrorists drove a lorry bomb into the British consulate in Istanbul, killing scores - mainly Turks. At the same time, a young man from South Yorkshire had been groomed by Islamists into becoming a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv.

I made what I thought were banal points, saying a choice had to be made between "the democratic rule of law, if you like the British or Turkish or American or European way, based on political dialogue and non-violent protests, or the way of the terrorists, against which the whole democratic world is now uniting. We need to move away from talk of martyrs and I hope we will see clearer, stronger language that there is no future for any Muslim cause anywhere in the world that validates, or implicitly supports, the use of political violence in any way."

Read today, those words are so commonplace every MP would endorse them. Four years ago, they were seen as provocative and unacceptable. "Experts" wrote articles denouncing me. Inside the Foreign Office, I was ordered to negotiate with a representative of the Muslim Council of Britain a partial retraction of my statement. I regret now my temporising, based on the genuine upset I could sense among Muslim friends in Yorkshire and, of course, any politician's wish to hold on to office.

Now, there is no excuse. If ministers and MPs want to know where terrorism comes from, they can read Ed Husain's book The Islamist, with its self-explanatory sub-title "Why I joined radical Islam in Britain, what I saw inside and why I left". Husain is one of a growing number of British Muslims who are telling the truth. Shiv Malik's remarkable reportage on the Islamist factionalism that won control of the July 7 bombers in Leeds can be read in a recent issue of Prospect. Unlike non-Muslims who tried to raise issues before a complacent political-media world was ready to listen, today's witness from British Muslims cannot be gainsaid. They are not like Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of al-Banna, who writes reverently about the founding father of Islamism. Recently, Prospect published a sympathetic profile interview of Ramadan. Last month, the magazine's editor, David Goodhart, wrote an open letter to him after Ramadan condemned a meeting at Downing Street that included Muslim leaders opposed to Islamism. Goodhart pointed out that neither foreign policy nor racist attitudes in a Britain where Muslim citizens have freer lives than in any Muslim state can justify the constant attacks on British democracy from the Islamist ideologues.

Ramadan did not deign to reply. He remains however a Whitehall consultant - despite his refusal to call for the abolition of stoning women to death under sharia.

But the days of refusing to confront Islamist ideology are drawing to an end. There is a new determination in government to spell out hard truths. And soon someone will explain to David Cameron that there is such a thing as Islamist ideology and Islamist terror crimes, and that they represent a fundamental challenge to everything Britain and British citizens - of all faiths and none - stand for.

Denis MacShane was Europe minister, 2002-05

    'Islamist' is the word for these terrorists, DTel, 3.7.2007, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/07/03/do0302.xml

Brilliant student,

doctor - and now a terror suspect

Published: 03 July 2007
The Independent
By Ian Herbert and Cahal Milmo
 

When Mohammed Asha told his family in 2004 that he was leaving Jordan for Britain to further his career in medicine, they were understandably optimistic about his chances of success. The exceptionally gifted student had graduated with top marks from Jordan University's medical school and his prodigious academic talents had also earned him a meeting with the country's former Queen Noor.

But Dr Asha's father was yesterday coming to terms with the news of his son and daughter-in-law's extraordinary arrest by police, who forced them on to the hard shoulder as they drove north on the M6 near the Sandbach services in Cheshire on Saturday night, in connection with the terror plot to bomb a London nightclub.

Police were granted an extended warrant to detain the Ashas until Saturday, along with two other doctors ­ Iraqi Bilal Abdulla of Paisley's Royal Alexandra Hospital and a 26-year-old Indian doctor arrested in Liverpool and believed to be from Halton Hospital in Cheshire. Another two doctors from the Royal Alexandra Hospital, aged 25 and 28, were also in custody last night.

But at his home in the Jordanian capital, Amman, Mr Asha's father Jamil Abdul Qader Asha, 55, clutched a photograph of his son with Queen Noor and insisted his son had never shown any interest in political Islam. "He was a devout Muslim but not strict," said Mr Asha, a retired teacher. " He prayed like any Muslim but was not a fanatic." Alongside the familial anguish came a picture yesterday of the immigrant doctor's academic brilliance.

Dr Asha, 26, was born in Saudi Arabia on 17 September 1980 into a family with origins in Hebron, in the West Bank. He is one of six brothers and two sisters, three of whom have also qualified as doctors.

His father taught Arabic in Saudia Arabia until the family returned to Amman in 1991, where a young Dr Asha won a place at the Jubilee School, set up for gifted children in Amman by Queen Noor, which resulted in him meeting her. He was at the top of his class and comfortably won a place at the medical school between 1998 and 2003, graduating with a degree in medicine.

"He would know his subject so well that his questioning often sounded like an interrogation," said Azmi Mufazhal, who taught him immunology during his third year." Dr Asha could have chosen to work anywhere but he decided to move to Britain in the hope of eventually returning home with a certificate confirming his neurological skill.

He married Marwa, whom he had known since childhood, at the age of 23, and took her with him as he undertook postgraduate studies in neurosurgery at the University of Birmingham and secured a 12-month post at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust in Shropshire as a junior doctor in the neurology department. The couple also have a two-year old son, Mr Asha's postgraduate training place qualified him in October 2005 for "limited registration" by the General Medical Council - a form of probationary registration which put him under the supervision of a fully registered doctor.

Dr Asha spent 12 months in Shropshire, working mainly at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and also at the Princess Royal in Telford, 15 miles away, before leaving last August to take up a position at the Royal Staffordshire Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent. His father said he had recently been offered a job as a specialist neurosurgeon in Birmingham and was " excited about the new job".

Another man with a medical background who left the Middle East to work in the UK was Bilal Abdulla, the Iraqi-born doctor who has been arrested for Saturday's attempted suicide bombing at Glasgow airport. The 27-year-old, who has lived in Britain for less than a year, was working as a locum at a hospital in the city.

Dr Abdulla obtained his medical qualification from Baghdad University in 2004. He was granted a licence to practice in the UK on 5 August last year and had been living unnobtrusively ever since in the nearby village of Houston. He is thought to have been renting 1970s house with another man, thought to be the second airport suspect.

Neighbours said the men had slipped quietly into life among families occupying the parade of houses on Neuk Crescent. One witness described having seen a man thought to be Dr Abdulla emerging from the property wearing surgical scrubs and a stethoscope. Their only activity of note was to wash a car, possibly the Cherokee Jeep used in the attack, early on a Saturday morning last month. It was one of a succession of cars seen outside the house, including a light blue Mercedes. It is not known if the Mercedes is linked to the failed bombing in London.

Dr Abdulla was working as a locum house officer at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, near Glasgow airport. He is one of 1,985 doctors working in Britain who obtained their initial medical qualification in Iraq.

Dr Asha and his Jordanian wife gave every appearance of having settled in well in Britain, though they rented an unprepossessing £500-a-month home near a brickworks at Sunningdale Grove in Newcastle-under-Lyme ­ a predominantly "white" area ­ and racism was a concern. " He asked me if this was a racist place. It was clearly weighing on his mind," Simon Plant, Dr Asha's landlady's son, told one journalist.

The surprise felt in Newcastle-under-Lyme was accentuated when house said locally to be rented by an Asian doctor and his wife at Priam Close, Bradwell, two miles from the Ashas, was also raided three hours later. Dr Asha's family is also bewildered and the medic's father called last night on Jordan's King Abdullah II to intervene with the British authorities. " Not all Arabs are terrorists," he said.

    Brilliant student, doctor - and now a terror suspect, I, 3.7.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2730425.ece

TRAPPED ON M6

02/07/2007
The Daily Mirror
Excusive by Jeff Edwards And Jon Clements

THIS was the dramatic scene after a husband and wife were grabbed on the M6 by police hunting the London and Glasgow car bombers.

Six unmarked police cars forced the couple, believed to be a Lebanese doctor aged 26 and his 27-year-old wife, to halt near Sandbach services, Cheshire, on Saturday night.

Last night they were among five people being questioned.

One suspect is a doctor who crashed a blazing 4x4 Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow Airport with another man. Both are believed to be Iraqis.

A man of 26 is held after being disabled with a Taser gun when his car was surrounded in Liverpool.

Four homes were raided.

A Mirror reader who took these extraordinary pictures on his mobile phone said: "I was travelling home to Chester and noticed a dark Skoda travelling erratically.

"The driver was alternately slowing down and speeding up. We overtook each other a few times.

"It turned out to be an unmarked police car. I then became aware of another, which was a dark VW."

After the couple were pulled over, police cars were spread across all three lanes of the motorway with traffic piling up behind.

The reader said: "I realised it was something very major. One officer in an unmarked car flashed his warrant card at me.

"When I saw they were questioning Middle Eastern-looking people I put two and two together.

"I could see just far enough ahead to take pictures on my mobile. I couldn't make out what kind of car the couple were in. But police appeared to be searching a vehicle.

"We were kept waiting for about an hour while more police passed us on the hard shoulder on their way to the scene."

The man was put in a forensic suit.

The woman, in a blue head veil and Muslim dress, was led away.

Both were taken to Paddington Green police station, West London.

Later, a three-bedroom home in Sunningdale Grove, Chesterton, Newcastle under Lyme - where the man and woman are believed to live with an 18-month-old child - was raided by police. Anti-terror chief, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said: "Information is arriving hour by hour.

"I'm absolutely confident that we'll gain a thorough understanding of the terrorists and the network to which they belonged."

Neighbours in Newcastle under Lyme said the suspect couple had rented the house for about a year from a family who moved abroad.

The wife rarely left the house alone but would accompany her husband in their P-reg car.

One neighbour said: "She didn't wear a veil but did wear Muslim dress.

"I only once saw her out without her husband.

They'd sometimes go out together but never really had any visitors.

"For the last couple of weeks I haven't seen anything of them at all."

Resident Richard Holland said: "The man is a doctor at the local hospital but we don't know much more. He kept to himself to himself.

He just said 'Hiya' and nothing else."

Another neighbour claimed: "He moved here from Shrewsbury about a year ago."

It is thought the doctor is employed by the University Hospital of North Staffordshire. Police would not confirm whether the house search was linked to the M6 arrests. The local health authority referred inquiries to police.

Two hours after the M6 operation, armed police swooped on a scruffily dressed Asian man as his black Toyota Rav4 pulled up at traffic lights in Lime Street, Liverpool.

It is believed a police helicopter had been tracking the suspect and guiding unmarked cars.

Two carloads of officers wearing protective vests jumped out of their Volvo estates. A witness said: "They started shouting 'Get out of the car, get out of the car'.

"The guy didn't move and sat there for about a minute before coming out with his hands up.

"The police continued shouting 'Get down, get down on the floor!' but he just ignored them.

"The next thing they used a Taser stun gun on him. The guy seemed to be wearing quite a few jumpers and nothing happened.

"He carried on standing just looking at them. Then they Tasered him again and he went down. He was handcuffed and bundled into the back of one of about four other police cars that had arrived."

The witness saw officers open the back of the Toyota to discover a suitcase and large parcel.

Police ordered an evacuation within a half-mile radius.

Officers raided two properties - in Ramilies Road, off Penny Lane, Liverpool, and in Hatherley Street Toxteth, close to a mosque.

In Scotland, a controlled explosion was carried out on a white BMW at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, in Paisley, where one of two men who crashed the Jeep Cherokee is lying critically ill.

The man, engulfed in flames, was pinned to the ground in Saturday's attack. His car passenger was also arrested.

A house in Neuk Street, Houston, Glasgow, was searched yesterday.

Neighbours said two smartly dressed Asian occupants had been seen cleaning a 4x4 vehicle. The pair were believed to be Middle Eastern.

It also emerged that police had phoned the owner of a house rented by the two men as they sped to their target. Officers had just linked the men to the plot to bomb London. It is believed they contacted the landlord about 15 minutes before the burning Jeep ploughed through the terminal doors at 3.11 pm.

On Friday police in London defused a Mercedes packed with petrol and gas canisters parked outside a nightclub in the West End's Haymarket. A second suspect Mercedes illegally parked in Trafalgar Square was towed to a compound by clampers who then alerted police.

    TRAPPED ON M6, DMi, 2.7.2007, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2007/07/02/trapped-on-m6-89520-19390296/

'I FLOORED JEEP BOMBER'

02/07/2007
The Daily Mirror
By Ron Moore
 

A HERO holidaymaker told last night how he floored one of the Glasgow car bombers while the smouldering maniac fought with police.

Steven Clarkson watched in horror as the terrorists' Jeep smashed into the terminal building and burst into flames with a deadly cargo of Molotov cocktails inside.

Other witnesses revealed the thug was screaming "Allah, Allah, Allah" as he threw punches at officers while still ablaze - his murderous mission foiled.

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Steven said: "I saw an Asian man lying on the ground, he was on fire and so was the Jeep. I think an airport official put him out with a fire extinguisher.

"He got up and he didn't seem to be distressed at all. He was trying to open the boot of the Jeep.

"The police approached and the Asian man, who looked quite strong, tried to start a fight with the police and airport officials. I managed to knock him down, I caught him a blow with my elbow.

"His clothes had been on fire, his whole body had been on fire, now his clothes were smouldering, his skin was smouldering.

"Four policemen got on top of him and pinned him down.

'He was disorientated and delirious.

"The smell of petrol was heavy in the air and there may have been explosives in the car. As the police told everyone to move back, there was an explosion from the car. A lot of people could have been in danger.

"The second man had walked into the terminal, but then he walked out again and he was restrained by the police."

Witness John Smeaton added: "It was unbelievable, the guy was in flames and still trying to fight the police. He was a maniac.

"He was shouting 'Allah, Allah, Allah,' with every punch he threw. I tried to grab him and pull him away. Then he was on all fours covered head to toe in flames."

Simon Howard told how he saw the Jeep speeding towards the packed terminal building, where thousands of passengers were waiting for flights at the start of Scotland's summer holidays.

He said one man was leaning out of the window brandishing a petrol bomb with a lighted rag in it.

Simon added: "I grabbed my daughter and I screamed to my wife, 'Run!'" Luckily for those inside the terminal, the Jeep got wedged under a canopy over the automatic doors at the entrance.

Witness Lynsey McBean, 26, from Erskine, Renfrewshire, said: "The men were obviously trying to get it further inside the airport as the wheels were spinning and smoke was coming from them.

"One of the men, I think it was the driver, brought out a plastic petrol canister and poured it under the car then set light to it.

"At that point, a policeman came over, the passenger got out of the car and punched him."

Passenger Mark McAdam added: "The man was burning. His clothes were on fire. His skin was peeling as he was fighting the police.

"The explosion was like a pop. There were loud bangs as well.

"People said the men were pouring petrol as they crashed."

James Edgar saw Saturday's drama unfold at around 3.15pm. He said: "The police were scuffling with an Asian man. he looked like he had hurt his leg. There was no emotion on his face.

"The crowd was shouting at him, but he just stared straight ahead."

Taxi driver Ian Crosby said: "There is no doubt that this was a deliberate terrorist attack." The man who was engulfed in flames was last night in hospital under armed police guard.

His accomplice was unhurt and arrested at the terminal.

Security at the airport had been stepped up since last year to stop private cars from entering.

But the terror pair slipped through in their green Jeep Cherokee by simply tailgating a taxi past guards.

The 4x4 then swerved hard right and smashed into the entrance.

As the motor got snagged on the canopy, the driver revved the engine hard in an effort to break free and the spinning tyres started a small fire.

At the same time the passenger started lighting Molotov cocktails in the back of the car.

The driver, dressed in a black boiler suit and a red and white scarf, poured petrol from a white container on to the flames through the window before he was turned into a human fireball.

    'I FLOORED JEEP BOMBER', DMi, 2.7.2007, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2007/07/02/-i-floored-jeep-bomber--89520-19390458/

4.45pm update

Two more arrested

over Glasgow airport attack

Monday July 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker, Ian Cobain and agencies

Police in Scotland today arrested two more men over the car bomb attack at Glasgow airport.

Soon after the arrests were confirmed, bomb squad officers carried out a controlled explosion at a nearby hospital.

The controlled explosion was carried out at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley, where one of the two men held on Saturday at Glasgow airport is continuing to receive treatment for severe burns.

The man is critically ill and has not yet been formally arrested. It is thought that the other man detained is a doctor who worked at the hospital.

Sky News said the controlled explosion was carried out on a vehicle in the doctor's accommodation block today. Police began searching the hospital's living quarters yesterday.

The latest two men to be arrested - who are aged 28 and 25 and who are understood not to be Scottish - were held in Paisley, close to the airport, Strathclyde police said.

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, this afternoon told the Commons that police had searched 19 addresses across the UK in a "fast moving" investigation following the discovery of two failed car bombs in London on Friday.

Five people were detained over the weekend in connection with the Glasgow attack and two failed car bombings in London's West End. The London and Glasgow incidents have been linked.

A second doctor is among the seven detained, and was today identified by police sources as Mohammed Asha, 27, who works at the North Staffordshire hospital in Stoke-on-Trent.

He is understood to be of Palestinian origin and began practicing in the UK in 2005 after qualifying in Jordan.

Dr Asha was arrested with his wife, also 27, after police in unmarked cars forced their car on to the hard shoulder as they drove north on the M6.

Police said they had now been granted until Saturday to question the couple - who they did not identify - and a 26-year-old man arrested in Liverpool on Saturday.

Officers and security services believe an al-Qaida-linked terrorist cell suspected of attempting to commit mass murder using the crudely made car bombs, which were packed with gas canisters and petrol, has at least eight members linked by a controlling "Mr Big".

It was confirmed today that officers investigating the London incidents discovered information about potential suspects in Glasgow before the airport attack.

The director of a Paisley-based letting agency which rented a house to one man suspected of involvement said his office had been contacted by detectives shortly before the incident.

Police tried and failed to get in touch with staff at the Let-It agency on Saturday lunchtime, eventually contacting them 10 minutes before a blazing Jeep was driven into the terminal building, Daniel Gardiner said.

"The police wanted to know why we had dialled a certain phone number," he added. "They had the phone records from the situation down in London."

The tenant had been seen leaving the house wearing a stethoscope and was also thought to be a doctor, working at the Royal Alexandra hospital, he said.

A Strathclyde police spokeswoman said she could not comment on whether there had been any prior warning of the airport attack. "Obviously, after the London incidents we would have been on high alert and any intelligence would have been passed on and followed up," she added.

Despite the weekend decision to put the UK on the highest state of security alert, critical - meaning an attack is expected - the prime minister's spokesman said Gordon Brown was keen to continue with "the main business of government" and would not be rushed into passing new anti-terror legislation.

Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, argued that the new alert should not be used to justify extending the time for which terror suspects can be held without charge from 28 to 90 days - a move Mr Brown reportedly favours.

Speaking this morning, Ms Smith said the fact no one had been killed in any of the three attempted attacks was more than just good fortune.

"I don't think it is luck - I think it is members of the public keeping an eye out, I think it is incredibly brave police officers and explosives officers, I think it is intelligence that is looked at very carefully," she added.

The first car bomb, discovered in a Mercedes parked outside the Tiger Tiger club in Haymarket, was made safe after ambulance staff dealing with an unconnected incident in the early hours of Friday saw smoke or petrol vapour in the vehicle and contacted police.

Detectives have a good picture from CCTV cameras of the person last seen in the Mercedes, who was running away, the Guardian understands.

The second London device was found in a vehicle parked illegally near Haymarket and towed away by a council employee.

Two men inside the Jeep Cherokee at Glasgow airport were held after members of the public helped police to overpower them.

    Two more arrested over Glasgow airport attack, G, 2.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2116710,00.html

Q&A:

Mohammad Asha and foreign doctors

July 2, 2007
From Times Online
Nigel Hawkes

A doctor qualified in Jordan and working here, Mohammad Asha, has been named as one of those arrested in connection with the series of failed car bomb attacks in recent days. What do we know about him?

Not much. He graduated in 2004, so would still be on the lowest rungs of medical training, as a junior hospital doctor. His specialist interest is reported to be neurology.

How do foreign doctors arrive and qualify for work in the UK?

Every year thousands of foreign doctors apply to register as doctors in the UK. The normal route, for a doctor who has qualified outside Europe from a recognised medical school, is to take tests of competence in English - the Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) test. An alternative route is to apply for postgraduate training at a recognised institution. Graduates who pass the PLAB test or win a postgraduate training place qualify for "limited registration" by the General Medical Council.

What is limited registration?

It is a form of probationary rgistration which does not enable the recipient to practice, except in a specified job where he or she is supervised by a fully-registered doctor. This is the form of registratiion held by Mohammad Asha, who graduated in Jordan in 2004 and was first given limited registration by the GMC in October 2005. It is not known whether he applied through PLAB or thrugh a postgraduate training programme.

How many doctors from aboard apply to work here?

Many thousands take the PLAB test every year, with numbers rising fast. In 2003 nearly 8,000 passed PLAB 1 and 5,000 PLAB 2. By 2004 the number passing PLAB 2 had risen to 7,500. But many graduates who pass find it very difficult to get jobs - more than a third who passed PLAB 2 in 2003 were still unemployed six months later. Those who do get jobs often find themselves in short-term posts, or six-month posts with no guarantee of further employment.

Who checks if they are who they say they are?

It is up to employing trusts to make these checks, advised by NHS Employers. Checks would include confirmation of identity, references and qualifications, plus a criminal records check. This is obviously harder to do in the case of international graduates, but the Criminal Records Bureau can provide country-by-country advice on whether and how it can be done.

Engaging in bombings is hardly compatible with a doctor's normal duty of care, is it?

It is entirely alien to all that doctors have stood for since Hippocrates first drafted the oath than enjoins doctors to "do no harm". While not all graduates these days swear the Hippocratic Oath on graduation, its principles still bind their conduct.

    Q&A: Mohammad Asha and foreign doctors, Ts, 2.7.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2015879.ece

3pm

Doctor among seven arrested

over car bombings


Monday July 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Ian Cobain

At least one of the seven people arrested over the attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow is a doctor, it was confirmed today.

Police sources said a man arrested on a motorway in Cheshire late on Saturday evening was Mohammed Asha, 27, a doctor working at the North Staffordshire Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent.

Detectives were understood to be searching his office at the hospital, where a spokesman said: "We would confirm that we are cooperating with the police in the course of this ongoing investigation."

Dr Asha, who is understood to be of Palestinian origin, began practising in the UK in 2005 after qualifying in Jordan, according to the General Medical Council.

A GMC spokeswoman said he held a type of provisional limited registration enabling him to work in the NHS under supervision.

Before moving to Staffordshire last year, where he rented a house in a cul-de-sac in Newcastle-under-Lyme, he had lived in Shropshire, working at the Royal Shrewsbury and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.

His wife, aged 27, was arrested alongside him after police in unmarked cars forced them onto the hard shoulder as they drove north on the M6.

In Jordan, government officials said that Dr Asha is of Palestinian origin and carries a Jordanian passport.

His father, Jamil AbdelKader Asha, said he had not been informed of his son's arrest, learning about it only though the media. "My son is incapable of such acts," he said.

He called on Jordan's King Abdullah II to intervene with the British authorities, adding: "Not all Arabs are terrorists."

There have been unconfirmed reports that one of the two men arrested after ramming a blazing Jeep into the front of the main terminal building at Glasgow airport on Saturday is also a doctor.

An occupant of a house being searched by police in the commuter village of Houston, Renfrewshire, told local residents that the arrested man was a doctor.

Army bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.

Yesterday, staff accommodation at the hospital was understood to have been searched. There was still a significant police presence visible at the complex today, with tape sealing off a road leading to what is understood to be the residential block.

Strathclyde police and the Royal Alexandra refused to confirm reports of searches and other police activity at the premises.

Doctor amond seven arrested over car bombings, G, 2.7.2007, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jul/02/terrorism.uk2


 

The Guardian        Online edition        2.7.2007

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2007/07/02/uk_attacksmap_tint.pdf

1pm update

Two more arrested

over Glasgow airport attack

Monday July 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker and agencies

Police in Scotland have arrested two more men over the car bombing at Glasgow airport today.

The news came as details of how officers urgently hunted suspects linked to the attack hours before it happened began to emerge.

The two men aged 28 and 25, who are not believed to be Scottish, were arrested in Paisley, close to the airport, Strathclyde police said. A spokesman added that the arrests had come as a result of "intensive police operations in the Paisley area last night".

Five people were detained over the weekend in connection with the Glasgow attack and two failed car bombings in central London the day before. Two of those held were reported to be doctors.

Police and security services believe an al-Qaida linked terrorist cell suspected of attempting to commit mass murder using the crudely made car bombs, which were packed with gas canisters and petrol, has at least eight members linked by a controlling "Mr Big".

It was confirmed today that officers investigating the London incidents - in which two vehicles containing petrol and gas devices failed to explode in the centre of the capital - discovered information about potential suspects in Glasgow before the airport attack.

The director of a Paisley-based letting agency which rented a house to one man suspected of involvement said his office had been contacted by detectives shortly before the incident.

Police tried and failed to get in touch with staff at the Let-It agency on Saturday lunchtime, eventually contacting them 10 minutes before a blazing Jeep was driven into the terminal building, Daniel Gardiner said.

"The police wanted to know why we had dialled a certain phone number," he added. "They had the phone records from the situation down in London."

The tenant had been seen leaving the house wearing a stethoscope and was thought to be a doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, he said.

A Strathclyde police spokeswoman said she could not comment on whether there had been any prior warning of the airport attack. "Obviously, after the London incidents we would have been on high alert and any intelligence would have been passed on and followed up," she added.

Gordon Brown will today hold Downing Street talks with MPs whose constituencies are affected by the Glasgow attack, as well as the Scotland secretary, Des Browne, and the transport secretary, Ruth Kelly.

Despite the weekend decision to put the UK on the highest state of security alert - meaning an attack is expected - the PM's spokesman said Mr Brown was keen to continue with "the main business of government" and would not be rushed into passing new anti-terror legislation.

Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, argued that the new alert should not be used to justify extending the time for which terror suspects can be held without charge from 28 to 90 days - a move Mr Brown reportedly favours.

Meanwhile, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she was "not certain" about separate reports that the UK had been warned by US intelligence agencies about a possible attack on Glasgow.

"One of the things I decided to do in this job is not to talk about things that I'm not certain about," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

In an interview with GMTV, she said the fact no one had been killed in any of the three attempted attacks was more than just good fortune.

"I don't think it is luck - I think it is members of the public keeping an eye out, I think it is incredibly brave police officers and explosives officers, I think it is intelligence that is looked at very carefully," she added.

The first car bomb, discovered in a Mercedes parked outside the Tiger Tiger club in Haymarket, was made safe after ambulance staff dealing with an unconnected incident in the early hours of Friday saw smoke or petrol vapour in the vehicle and contacted police.

Detectives have a good picture from CCTV cameras of the person last seen in the Mercedes, who was running away, the Guardian understands.

The second London device was found in a vehicle parked illegally near Haymarket and towed away by a council employee.

Two men inside the Jeep at Glasgow airport were arrested after members of the public helped police to overpower them. One of the men, believed to be the driver, was critically ill in hospital with severe burns. The other, a 27-year-old, was in police custody.

Yesterday, two people were arrested on the M6 in Cheshire after anti-terrorism officers forced their car to stop. A 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman were held. The vehicle was believed to have been travelling north from the west Midlands.

In Liverpool, a man aged 26 was arrested after a car was stopped near Lime Street station. Police were searching addresses in the area, and all three suspects arrested in the north-west were brought to London for questioning.

    Two more arrested over Glasgow airport attack, G, 2.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2116710,00.html

Midday update

Salmond warns

against tougher detention laws

Monday July 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver and agencies

The failed terror attacks in Glasgow and London should not be used to justify detaining terror suspects for 90 days, Scotland's first minister said today.

Alex Salmond said there was nothing in the current investigation that supported arguments that the law should be changed from 28 to 90 days' detention for terror suspects.

Last month, before he became prime minister, it was reported that Gordon Brown wanted to increase the detention period to 90 days, although he said yesterday that now was not the time to focus on the issue and that a consensus needed to be built.

Tony Blair persistently argued for the toughened detention laws despite suffering his first House of Commons defeat on the issue in November 2005, which prompted calls for him to resign.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, had asked Mr Blair for longer detention periods to gather evidence, arguing that tasks such as retrieving information from suspects' computers could take a long time.

However, Mr Brown's spokesman said today he did not think now was the right time "for rushing into new legislation at the moment".

"The prime minister is determined to ensure that every action is taken to protect the public, but we are equally determined that while dealing with all those issues we must not be deflected from the main business of government," the spokesman added.

Mr Brown will have talks at Downing Street today with MPs whose constituencies are affected by the Glasgow attack, as well as the Scotland secretary, Des Browne, and the transport secretary, Ruth Kelly. Asked about the detention laws today on BBC Radio Scotland, Mr Salmond, who has previously voiced doubts over the government's tough terror legislation, said: "We have not been persuaded about the necessity for that, as indeed other parties haven't."

He said it was "far too early" to draw conclusions from the Glasgow incident, but added: "Obviously if new information comes forward then I'm sure all political parties would want to look at it, but currently we are not persuaded."

Mr Salmond was a persistent critic of Mr Blair's view of terrorism in the UK, attacking his arguments that the Iraq invasion was not a factor in the July 7 2005 attacks in London.

But Mr Salmon said today: "We should currently emphasise the united determination across all the political parties to stand together against terrorism." He said life was getting back to normal in Scotland.

Meanwhile, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, chief constable Colin McKerracher of Grampian police, said he was confident police had "everything we need" in the current investigation in terms of terror legislation. However, he added that he expected Scottish police to be temporarily granted extra stop-and-search powers by the Home Office in the wake of the Glasgow incident.

Mr McKerracher said the powers had been applied for on Saturday after the car bomb attempt. Speaking at a press conference in Glasgow today, he urged the public to be tolerant of extra security measures being brought in to protect Scotland.

He said: "We have applied for the authorisation to utilise stop-and-search and that is across every community in Scotland. That will be done sensitively and in situations where officers on the ground feel that is appropriate. Those powers were sought two days ago and that gives us an immediate 48 hours authorisation and then they will be confirmed by the home secretary."

At the weekend, Mr Salmond had insisted that sufficient preparations had been made to deal with a terrorist attack in Scotland.

On Saturday, two men were arrested after a blazing jeep was driven at Glasgow airport's main terminal. Police have linked the incident with the discovery of two car bombs in London in the early hours of Friday. Reports today claimed that police investigating the London car bombs had linked the case to Glasgow the day before the attack on the city's airport.

Five people have been arrested in the terror investigation, and police are believed to be chasing at least one more person linked to the attacks. The UK's security level remains at "critical", the highest level.

The US president, George Bush, yesterday praised Mr Brown's "strong response" to the attacks.

He said: "It just goes to show the war against these extremists goes on. You never know where they may try to strike, and I appreciate the very strong response that the Gordon Brown government has given to the attempts by these people."

    Salmond warns against tougher detention laws, G, 2.7.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2116550,00.html

Raids begin at dawn as evidence emerges

· Police say fast-moving inquiry
reveals new information on plot by the hour

Monday July 2, 2007
Guardian
Ian Cobain, Severin Carrell and Richard Norton-Taylor

The day began with three unmarked police cars sealing off the M6 motorway in Cheshire and forcing a car carrying two terrorism suspects on to the hard shoulder. Minutes later, more than 40 miles away in Liverpool, another suspect, spotted at a railway station, was arrested.

Before dawn police were raiding two houses in a quiet commuter village outside Glasgow. More raids followed in north Staffordshire. And a few hours later the army carried out a controlled explosion on a car parked outside a hospital in Paisley, amid claims that at least one of the car bombing suspects was a doctor.

Despite the confusion of the fast-moving events, it was clear that a suspected al-Qaida-inspired terrorist cell with links to the Midlands, Liverpool, Scotland and the south-east of England was being rounded up in a bid to prevent any more attempted car bomb attacks.

Five suspects were under arrest by the end of the day and police were searching for several others, including at least one man in London. Detectives are thought to have gathered a wealth of evidence, including CCTV images in London's West End, DNA from two car bombs which failed to explode and documentation and forensic traces in Renfrewshire. They also used CCTV and traffic cameras, and automatic number plate recognition programmes, to track the would-be car bombers along their routes to central London and Glasgow airport.

"The investigation into these events, these attacks, is extremely fast moving," said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism command. "New information is coming to light hour by hour."

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, based at MI5's headquarters, raised the terrorism threat level to critical - the highest possible - indicating that further strikes may be imminent. And the government's crisis management committee, Cobra, sat again for the fourth time in three days yesterday, chaired by Jacqui Smith, who has undergone a baptism of fire since her appointment last Thursday as the UK's first female home secretary.

The nature of the attempted attacks in the capital in the early hours of Friday morning did not take senior Scotland Yard offi cers by surprise. One had spoken privately of his conviction that the next attacks in the UK would be "vehicle-borne bombs against iconic targets".

The two Mercedes loaded with gas cylinders, petrol cans and nails, parked yards from the Eros statue at Piccadilly Circus and Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square, appeared to be just that. One vehicle, parked outside a crowded nightclub, was made safe after a passing ambulanceman spotted fumes inside, while police were alerted to the second by a wheel-clamper who smelled gas while towing it away.

Two suspects were arrested after a Jeep Cherokee rammed into the front of the main terminal building at Glasgow airport on Saturday afternoon. It was the first day of the Scottish school holidays and the building was crowded. As the vehicle erupted in flames the driver clambered out, doused himself in petrol, and set himself alight, witnesses said.

"He had a big smirk on his face," said one, Jackie Kennedy. The man was last night in a critical condition in hospital.

After firefighters doused the flames, police discovered that the vehicle was loaded with propane gas cylinders, petrol and nails, like the London car bombs.

Within hours of the Glasgow attack, police wearing suits intended to offer protection against biological or chemical weapons were searching two houses in the largely prosperous commuter village of Houston, Renfrewshire, four miles west of the airport.

Neighbours described how one twobedroom semi in Neuk Crescent was raided at 4.30am yesterday. Police erected a tent and plastic awning at the rear of the building to shield offi cers as the searched the property, which backs on to a conifer forest. Residents were told to stay indoors, and those living in the adjoining property were evacuated.

The house had been rented last month by two Asian men in their late 20s or early 30s, who rarely spoke to neighbours.

The Guardian has learned that police were searching for one of the occupants of the house on Saturday morning - before the airport attack - investigating a possible connection with the previous day's attempted bombings in London. This individual had told some people in the town that he was a doctor.

Parts of the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley, where the burned man from the airport attack was being treated - were evacuated yesterday while the army carried out a controlled explosion inside a car parked in the grounds. The hospital was unable to admit emergency patients for a while, and ambulances were diverted to other hospitals in the region.

A few hours before the Renfrewshire raids, police had arrested a 26-year-old man and a woman aged 27 in a dramatic operation on the M6 in south Cheshire. A witness, Peter Whitehead, told how three unmarked police cars brought the traffic on the northbound carriageway to a halt.

"In front of them were a couple of other unmarked police cars and they forced a car on to the hard shoulder and got the occupants out and, as far as I can see, arrested them."

The Guardian understands that the couple had been followed from Birmingham and were thought to be en route to Scotland. Soon afterwards a second 26-year-old man was arrested at Liverpool's Lime Street railway station.

Police also searched two addresses in the city, one in Toxteth and one near Penny Lane in the Mossley Hill district.

Two witnesses, Declan Murphy and Melissa Heywood, described how officers took cover behind a jeep at the Mossley Hill address and others aimed guns at the house while colleagues got in. Mr Murphy said: "At first I thought it was something to do with drugs then the Glasgow thing came to mind and we thought it must have been terrorism."

Yesterday afternoon police raided a property in Newcastle-under-Lyme, in Staffordshire. Residents said the occupant was a doctor at a local hospital.

A neighbour, Daniel Robinson, told the Press Association: "It's a rented property. The owners are away and the gentleman living there is a hospital doctor. They have been here for just over nine months. I have only occasionally met him. He seems a very pleasant man. He speaks good English."

Another resident, Richard Holland, told the news agency: "The man is a doctor at the local hospital. We have been told that a vehicle pulled over by police up north had something to do with the house.

"He kept to himself. He had a wife and a young child. He never really spoke. He said 'Hiya' and nothing else."

Explainer: essential targets

Senior Yard officers say they believe there are around 250 British citizens who are determined to mount terrorist attacks in this country. Many have undergone some weapons and explosives training at al-Qaida camps along the Pakistani-Afghan border, and have absorbed that organisation's doctrine that several attacks should be launched simultaneously and claim as many lives as possible.

As well as individuals known to the security services as "essential targets" there are 700 people categorised as "desirable targets", who pose a lesser risk, and some 1,000 people classed as "other targets", who have knowledge of terrorist attacks. It is possible that many of those involved in the weekend's attempted attacks are known to the police and MI5, but have not been arrested as there was insufficient evidence.

The police and MI5 are unable to keep all of these targets under surveillance, and there is always concern that some individuals assessed as desirable targets may be planning the next attack. Two of the July 7 bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, slipped though MI5's net in this way.

"There are so many people plotting, prioritising is the only way," said a senior counter-terrorist official.

Counter-terrorist sources said they hoped the individuals arrested would be identified on intelligence databases. This would mean the investigation could progress much faster, the sources said.

Security sources said it was too early to say what links the plotters had with al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan. The way the attacks were planned and that they were not suicide bombers suggest links were tenuous.

    Raids begin at dawn as evidence emerges, G, 2.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2116298,00.html




 

Race to break terror cell

· Members of al-Qaida group run by 'Mr Big' still at large
· Five arrested bomb suspects were not born in Britain
· Glasgow and London attempts linked as probe gathers pace

Monday July 2, 2007
Guardian
Vikram Dodd and Severin Carrell

Police and the security services are still hunting for at least three members of an al-Qaida linked terrorist cell suspected of attempting to commit mass murder using car bombs in London and Glasgow. Counter-terrorism officers believe the cell has at least eight members, linked by a controlling "Mr Big".

The hunt led police to make five arrests at the weekend and raid a number of addresses across England and Scotland, amid fears that there could be another attempted attack. Two of those arrested were said to be doctors.

The Jeep attack on Saturday at Glasgow airport, a day after two failed attempts to bomb targets in central London, triggered a decision to take the UK to its highest state of alert.

The incidents were linked after a strong forensic connection was found between the Jeep rammed into the terminal at Glasgow airport and two Mercedes car bombs found in London. The Jeep was packed with petrol and gas canisters similar to those found in the London vehicles, which also contained nails. Counter-terrorist sources indicated that the link was much broader and that the individuals suspected of involvement in the London and Glasgow terrorist acts were connected.

Detectives have a good picture from cameras of the person last seen in the Mercedes car parked outside the Tiger Tiger club in London, the Guardian understands. Breakthroughs and forensic clues are emerging almost hourly as CCTV footage is examined. An official police source said "lots of clues" had been found and "rapid progress" made. But only luck and a flaw in the devices avoided substantial loss of life.

The investigation intensified yesterday when two people were arrested on the M6 in Cheshire after anti-terrorism officers forced their car to stop. A man, 26, and woman, 27, were held. The vehicle was believed to have been travelling north from the West Midlands.

In Liverpool, a man aged 26 was arrested after a car was stopped near Lime Street station and police were searching addresses in the area. All three suspects arrested in the north-west were brought to London for questioning.

Two houses raided yesterday had been rented to people who said they were doctors, according to neighbours. One was in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, and the other in Houston, near Glasgow airport. Daniel Gardiner, director of the property agency that let the Houston house, said police had interviewed his staff about the tenants. "They [the police] seemed to know an awful lot about these people," he said.

The importance of Scotland in the investigation was underlined by the national anti-terrorism coordinator's journey from London to Glasgow. At a news conference there, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said: "The links between the three attacks are becoming ever clearer." The usually cautious Mr Clarke said: "I am confident, absolutely confident, that in the coming days and weeks we will be able to gain a thorough understanding of the methods used by the terrorists, of the way in which they planned their attacks and the network to which they belong."

Two men arrested after the Glasgow attack remained in custody yesterday. One of them, believed to be the driver, was critically ill in hospital with severe burns. He was under armed guard. Another man, 27, who had been in the vehicle, was in police custody.

Yesterday a car in the grounds of the hospital in which he was being treated was destroyed in a controlled explosion. Police said it was linked to the investigation.

Police declined to give details about those arrested, but Strathclyde's Assistant Chief Constable John Neilson revealed that those held in Glasgow were not Scottish. He told a public meeting at a city mosque: "The people we have in custody came to Scotland a short while ago to seek work. Other than that, I can't tell you - but I'm sure the community in Glasgow in particular will be reassured. These are not your young people." Security sources said later none of the five arrested was born in Britain.

Security across the UK was boosted after the raising of the threat level. Patrols were increased at crucial infrastructure sites such at power plants, and extra security was in force at airports, rail stations and at mass public events such as Wimbledon.

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre took the decision on Saturday to raise the status to critical, meaning a terrorist attack could be imminent.

A senior source said there was no specific intelligence pointing to an attack, and that the country was expected to stay on maximum alert for days because "we do not know the full picture".

Analysts had warned that the change in prime minister could see terrorists target Britain, and the first five days of Gordon Brown's premiership have seen him face a severe national security emergency.

The prime minister warned the public yesterday to expect increased checks of cars at airports and in other public places. And Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, praised the public's "vigilance and good humour" in dealing with security issues.

    Race to break terror cell, G, 2.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2116277,00.html

10.45am

Police 'hunted suspects

before airport attack'

Monday July 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker and agencies

Police had information about the Glasgow airport car bomb suspects shortly before the attempted bombing happened, it emerged today.

Strathclyde police refused to confirm reports that officers had been trying to track down suspects shortly before a Jeep packed with gas canisters and petrol was driven into the airport's terminal building on Saturday afternoon.

However, the director of a Paisley-based letting agency which rented a house to one man suspected of involvement said today that his company had been contacted by detectives just before the airport attack.

Police appeared to have established a link between the tenants of the house in Houston, near the airport, and two failed car bomb attacks on Friday in London, Daniel Gardiner, of the Let-It agency, said.

"A card was put through one of my colleague's door, asking if we would contact them," he said. "He had been out for a couple of hours and found the note when he got back at 3.05pm. The card was put through prior to the incident at Glasgow airport.

"A couple of hours later, they came back to us with a name and we were able to trace their records."

The tenant in Houston had been seen leaving the house wearing a stethoscope and was thought to be a doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Mr Gardiner added.

"The police wanted to know why we had dialled a certain phone number. They had the phone records from the situation down in London," he said. "We had made a phone call in regard to the tenant at that house. We could find no record of contacting that number but the police had got detailed phone analysis."

A Strathclyde police spokeswoman said she could not comment on whether there had been any prior warning of the airport attack.

"Obviously, after the London incidents we would have been on high alert and any intelligence would have been passed on," the spokeswoman added.

Meanwhile, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she was "not certain" about separate reports that the UK had been warned by US intelligence agencies about a possible attack on Glasgow.

"One of the things I decided to do in this job is not to talk about things that I'm not certain about," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"One because I think that is what the British public would expect, and two because sometimes speculation doesn't help the investigation and bringing people to justice, so I'm not going to do that."

The head of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, chief constable Colin McKerracher, said he was also "not aware" of any warning from the US. "I have no information that would substantiate that claim," he told Sky News.

    Police 'hunted suspects before airport attack', 2.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2116598,00.html

This gesture security is inevitable.

But it has barely any practical value

The flurry of precautions after terrorist attacks are almost always charades. Real counter-measures all hinge on intelligence

Monday July 2, 2007
The Guardian
Max Hastings


Pity anyone who must catch a plane or visit Wimbledon today, or indeed for many days to come. Following Friday's London bombs and Saturday's attack at Glasgow airport, security checks have intensified dramatically. Everybody engaged in what is now a vast industry wants to be seen to be trying harder.

It is another matter, of course, whether all the conspicuous activity that follows a terrorist incident adds a jot to public safety, to compensate for the huge economic cost it imposes. Most security precautions represent a charade. It is probably a politically necessary charade - we will explore that issue in a moment. But we should be sceptical about its practical value.

Gesture security attained its nadir in February five years ago, with the deployment of armoured vehicles at Heathrow. It was possible to accept that the security service and police possessed plausible intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack an aircraft with a missile. It was impossible, however, to believe light tanks could play a useful part in preventing such an action. Aircraft landing or taking off are within comfortable range of a missile fired from well outside any airport perimeter. Even if an obliging member of al-Qaida knelt with his launcher beside a runway, it is unlikely he could best be frustrated by a 30mm cannon fired from the turret of a Scorpion.

The Heathrow tank deployment was a political, not military, precaution. It was designed to impress the public, rather than in the serious expectation of stopping an atrocity. This was an extreme case of nonsense security, but there are plenty of lesser ones every day in airport search queues.

A dilemma confronts the Home Office, intelligence services and police chiefs every time a terrorist incident takes place. They know that, rationally, there is little chance that imposing car checks at airports will accomplish anything more than adding an hour or two's delay to every passenger's flight time. Yet they are also acutely conscious that if they fail to be seen to raise their game, and another would-be terrorist then crashes into a British airport terminal, it would be a resignation issue.

The usual compromise is that extreme security checks are introduced for some days following a major incident. Then, when the headlines cool and the economic disruption becomes intolerable, security reverts to "normal". This does not represent a logical approach, but it is hard to see any way around it in a democracy vulnerable to media frenzies.

It is also hard for ministers and the police to pitch their public utterances. A reasoned statement, following the weekend's events, might have gone something like this: "After so much speculation about attacks on Britain by terrorists wielding weapons of mass destruction and biological weapons, it is a relief to see these attempts made with weapons as crude as cars filled with petrol and gas cylinders. The group carrying out the attacks are grotesque amateurs. At worst, their efforts might have inflicted the level of fatalities caused by a motorway smash." In reality, of course, it would be unthinkable for anyone in authority to say anything of the sort. Spokesmen must talk gravely about "a threat of dreadful carnage", because anything less would sound flippant and irresponsible.

When a nation is in a state of declared war with a state enemy, the issues are much simpler, and the public soon learns to understand them. When the Germans began bombing British cities in 1940, anti-aircraft guns put up big barrages whenever raiders were overhead. The belief that "we're hitting back" boosted morale. It was soon discovered, however, that shell fragments from the guns were inflicting almost as many casualties as German bombs, and that scarcely any planes were being hit. Most batteries were moved to places where they were less visible but might do some real good. Likewise, people stopped abandoning their work whenever a raid was threatened and sought refuge in shelters only if raiders were close overhead.

Yet conditions and expectations today, in times of peace, are very different. Public safety is threatened only spasmodically, and in the most erratic and unpredictable ways. What the army calls "point defence", meaning the protection of specific buildings and sites against assault, is neither feasible nor credible when the range of possible targets is almost unlimited, and the economic life of the country must continue.

Most of us have become reconciled to the steel gates in Downing Street and concrete barriers outside the Houses of Parliament. These are obviously high-profile targets. There is a real prospect, rendered more vivid by the people who crashed into Glasgow's terminal on Saturday, that terrorists could try to use a vehicle as an assault weapon against Britain's most famous national symbols.

Thereafter, however, common sense decrees that public buildings must take their chances. It is not credible, for instance, to fortify all airport terminals. We should recognise the searching of passengers for what it is, a necessary gesture unlikely to stop a half-sophisticated terrorist from smuggling some instrument of menace on to a flight.

All serious counter-measures hinge on intelligence: identifying potential threats by surveillance and penetration. The security service deserves more sympathy than it usually receives for its difficulties in achieving this. The range of militant young Muslims now in Britain, both homegrown and imported, is frighteningly large.

Since 9/11, MI5 has been deluged in money and has recruited thousands of new officers, including a significant number of Muslims. But it takes years to train such people and enable them to gain the experience to become Smileys. More than that, they do not receive anything like the assistance from the British Muslim community which they need effectively to contain the threat, never mind defeat it.

It is difficult for intelligence officers to distinguish between militants who merely talk big and those actually intending to commit acts of violence. An MI5 officer described to me a while ago the problems posed by suspects who behave normally for months, even years, before suddenly embarking on an attack. Surveillance requires a massive commitment of manpower. Every day, MI5 is obliged to make life-and-death choices about who it will continue to monitor. The quality of police assistance is patchy, to put it politely, and a source of much dismay in intelligence circles.

Although I am as sceptical as many people about the loss of civil liberties in the name of anti-terrorism, it seems essential at the very least to legitimise interception evidence in court proceedings. This is a much more important tool for protecting the public than checking cars approaching airports, and causes far less inconvenience to the innocent.

In the days ahead, we shall see plenty more gesture security, because that is politics in the wake of a terrorist incident. We should recognise it for what it is, however, and not confuse it with measures that serve the real purpose of protecting us from violent fanatics.

    This gesture security is inevitable. But it has barely any practical value, G, 2.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2116226,00.html

Intelligence

Warnings received about Blair handover

· Authorities aware of threat to Britain since April
· No information on specific target, say security sources

Monday July 2, 2007
Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor and Clare Dyer

Warnings were issued three months ago about the threat of a terrorist campaign to mark the end of Tony Blair's premiership, security sources have revealed.

As the threat level was raised to "critical" on Saturday, it emerged that two agencies - the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure, which reports to MI5, and the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, which reports to chief police officers - warned in April about the possibility of a renewed campaign.

Nightclub owners were recently told they could be the targets of car bombs in a precautionary exercise which saw them issued with pamphlets and given other guidance.

But sources yesterday denied claims by the US network ABC that intelligence officials were warned a fortnight ago of an impending attack on "airport infrastructure or aircraft" in Glasgow.

A senior security source said of the latest assessment: "The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre [Jtac] assessed that a group of individuals, it is not known how many, clearly had the capability and the intent to carry out attacks on the UK. Therefore there was a strong likelihood of further attacks."

Jtac also warned that al-Qaida's "Kurdish network in Iran [was] planning what we believe may be a large-scale attack against a western target".

It added: "A member of this network is reportedly involved in an operation which he believes requires al-Qaida core authorisation. We assess that this operation is most likely to be a large-scale mass casualty attack".

Jtac's threat levels are based on current intelligence, recent events and what is known of terrorist intentions and capabilities. The term "critical" denotes that an attack is "expected imminently".

It is the result of an overall intelligence assessment, not specific intelligence.

Police have recently stepped up searches of vehicles, including tankers, entering London. Whitehall officials, referring to communications intercepts, said yesterday there had been "quite loud chatter for months" of plans to attack Britain. But they said there was nothing specific and such reports and claims came in every day.

The threat level was last assessed as critical in August last year after the discovery of the alleged plot to blow up passenger airliners over the Atlantic. It was reduce to severe shortly afterwards.

Threat level warnings by Jtac - a group including officers from MI5, MI6, GCHQ, and the police's National Counter Terrorism Command - are based on intelligence- led assessments and involve difficult judgments.

Just how difficult became clear when the level was reduced a month before the July 7 London suicide bombings in 2005. Some security and intelligence officials express concern about the threat level system, which was made public last August after a number of leaks of Jtac reports.

Though the levels were given new names and their definitions simplified, they are open to misinterpretation, some officials believe.

Against the backdrop of the latest alert, five law lords will be asked this week to decide whether the control order regime for suspected terrorists violates the European convention on human rights.

Control orders, with restrictions which include 12-hour or 14-hour curfews, and bans on internet access and unauthorised visitors, were introduced in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 after the law lords ruled indefinite detention without charge for foreign terror suspects in Belmarsh prison breached their human rights.

In a five-day hearing starting on Thursday, lawyers for nine men placed on control orders will argue that the system breaches their right to liberty under article 5 of the European convention, and their right to a fair trial under article 6.

The law lords will be asked to rule whether the system under which judges confirm control orders after looking at intelligence material concealed from the suspect is incompatible with the right to a fair trial.

At a glance:

The police and the security services use the following terms to describe threat levels:

Low Attack is unlikely

Moderate Attack is possible but unlikely

Substantial Attack is strong possibility

Severe Attack is highly likely

Critical Attack expected imminently

Protective security "response" levels are also graded:

Normal Routine protective security

Heightened Additional and sustainable security measures

Exceptional Maximum security protection

    Warnings received about Blair handover, G, 2.7.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2116321,00.html

The link with Iraq


Monday July 2, 2007
The Guardian
Leader


When it argued for the invasion of Iraq, the British government placed the national interest at the centre of its case. Not only would the invasion contribute to international order, Tony Blair said, but it would cut off at its roots the threat of terrorism in the UK. Many disputed the link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein and pointed out that war and occupation might assist extremist organisations recruiting British Muslims, giving terrorism a spurious (but, to the wrong-headed, compelling) moral justification.

When, following the invasion, it was suggested that Britain had been made a more obvious target for Islamist terrorism, Tony Blair accused those who made this case of appeasement. He pointed out (rightly) that non-participants in the war were also targets, and that 9/11 was one of several attacks al-Qaida staged before Iraq. Those who warned that the war would antagonise Muslims were accused of indulging - and even stoking up - disaffection.

The prophecy that occupying Iraq meant attacking al-Qaida has proved grimly self-fulfilling. Osama bin Laden's network has become associated with resistance to British and American involvement in Iraq - either directly, or by using the fate of Iraqis as supposed proof of the west's malign intentions towards Muslims. Can it be denied that the invasion encouraged a growth in al-Qaida's threat and influence?

It is time for a new prime minister to revisit these arguments. The daily carnage in Iraq is perhaps hard to acknowledge for members of the cabinet involved in the chain of events that led finally to this hellish instability. Each and every day ordinary Iraqis are victims of the sort of mayhem planned for London and Glasgow last week. Most civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are at the hands of non-western forces, yet it is still the west that gets the blame - and, indeed, it has some responsibility for the context in which they happen. That techniques from Iraq - petrol and gas canisters placed in cars - seem to have been exported to the UK is more than symbolic. It is not proof of a direct link with al-Qaida, nor should it absolve the would-be bombers from condemnation. Yet it is wrong to claim there is no link to Iraq. Indeed, this past weekend there appeared to be some striking, if grotesque, parallels.

Today, a refusal to acknowledge that the much more lethal carnage in Iraq is in part a consequence of western actions is damaging the national interest. It would be wrong to think that Britain either could or should sue for peace. At its core, Islamist fundamentalism is irreconcilable with western values. It must be confronted, as it was before Iraq. But in the ease with which extremists may recruit disaffected European Muslims lies softer, human territory. It is here that the government might increase domestic security by disproving the arguments the extremists use and giving the lie to the false picture they paint of Britain.

Gordon Brown's new government has to find a form of words that acknowledges Britain's role in creating - unintentionally - the conditions for instability, civil war and mayhem. It has to find not just the will to disengage over time (such a will already exists) but the language to convince listeners that this is now the government's settled purpose. Such an approach would not extirpate the terrorist cause in Britain, but it would be a start in altering the conditions in which terrorists recruit. It would also be morally and historically right.

After Suez, Britain's friends in the world held faith with a confidence that decent parts of our public life never wavered in their opposition to the ill-fated adventure, and represented another side of the British character. As a new prime minister seeks to rebuild Britain's international reputation, an early signal that this tendency is winning the argument, and shall prevail, would be both right and in our national interest.

    The link with Iraq, G, 2.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2116130,00.html

Strings of terror are knotted internally

July 2, 2007 10:32 AM
The Guardian
Jason Burke

It takes, on average, three or four months before the real details of a terrorist plot become known. In the Middle East, south-west Asia or Africa this is because of the length of time an investigation takes. In some instances, such as the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 it has taken years before the public really learned who had destroyed the American embassies in each nation, how and, to an extent, why. The latter question is often the hardest to answer.

In the UK, investigations can move very rapidly, particularly when the police actually hold suspected bombers caught, more or less, in the act. In the UK, because of strict sub judice laws, the whole story behind a given attack often takes a long time to filter out.

So as ever, before the investigation and eventual court case really get underway, it is informed speculation that fills the gap.

It is fairly clear that the events in London and Glasgow were linked. Neither planned strike was particularly professional, despite what some have said. Bombs in both Afghanistan and Iraq are usually of a far higher degree of sophistication than the devices found in London - one of which was unwittingly towed away by traffic wardens. Neither detonated as it was supposed to and the mixture of petrol and gas cans, apparently without plastic explosives or ammonium nitrate fertiliser, only tends to work if, as in both the above countries, you have a ready supply of semi-dismantled mortar bombs to chuck in with them. This does not appear to have been the case.

Driving a car full of inflammable liquids into the front of an airport is equally amateurish. The vehicle was hampered by bollards, a potential problem that an elementary reconnaissance would have picked out. It is possible that the Glasgow bombers acted precipitately when they realised, perhaps out of fear of discovery, that they had to act quickly. This would bolster the theory that the attacks were linked. An attack in the West End of London and in Scotland would show the supposed reach of the bombers. Equally, it is unlikely that the latter was put together in two days or less. Though fairly basic, it still takes longer than that to gather the material and the people, for such an attempt, especially if you want to do it secretly.

Sadly, their lack of professionalism is not necessarily heartening. We know already that the al-Qaida hard core of Osama bin Laden and the few dozen senior militants around him has been seriously degraded in recent years. Experienced, competent bomb-makers are now few and far between.

However, instead there are scores - if not hundreds - of young men who have been radicalised by al-Qaida's propaganda. Al-Qaida has traded competence and discipline for resilience and dispersion. Both are effective in their way. The threat has evolved but remains relatively constant - ie severe.

Some of the new adepts are young enough for September 11 to be almost a childhood memory. Some are prepared to act, sometimes with extreme violence. Nobody needs direction as to what might make a good target any longer and, though skills training is useful, it is not entirely necessary. The point can be made without necessarily bringing down a passenger jet. Once again, there is a tendency to look outside the UK for "masterminds" pulling the strings. Most of the strings are knotted internally however. Bin Laden doesn't need to send anyone to the UK. There are enough people prepared to act already here.

    Strings of terror are knotted internally, G, 2.7.2007, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jason_burke/2007/07/strings_of_terror_are_knotted_internally.html

Travel

Summer of delays and disruption ahead

as airports tighten security

· New measures in place to prevent copycat attacks
· Holidaymakers forced to endure four-hour queues

Monday July 2, 2007
Guardian
Dan Milmo, Severin Carrell and Vikram Dodd

Air passengers were warned to expect another summer of disruption yesterday as police moved to prevent copycat attacks in the wake of the attempted suicide bombing at Glasgow airport.

Terminal forecourts across the UK were sealed off from vehicles, causing lengthy tailbacks and forcing drivers to pick up and drop off passengers at airport car parks. Buses and taxis were allowed closer access at major flights hubs such as Heathrow and Stansted as police targeted privately owned vehicles using stop-and-search laws.

Glasgow was the worst affected, with the airport completely closed off to cars after it reopened yesterday morning. About a third of all departing flights were cancelled amid chaotic scenes at Scotland's busiest international airport.

Thousands of holidaymakers, many in T-shirts and summer clothing, queued for up to four hours to enter the airport. Suitcases and bags were piled up along pavements a mile from the terminal building while disconsolate passengers waited for news of their flights. Having waited in sometimes torrential rain, some passengers were told their flights had left before being shepherded through an overspill carpark.

Jacqueline Robertson was among the thousands of holidaymakers who had booked flights this weekend to coincide with the start of the Scottish schools' summer holidays. Mrs Robertson and her family were booked on to a flight to Palma at 8pm on Saturday but were left stranded after EasyJet told them to come to Glasgow airport, despite the terrorist attack.

Their experience had been "terrible," she said. "We couldn't get through to EasyJet. It was constantly engaged, and then they just turned their phone off."

Liverpool John Lennon airport, which was closed on Saturday night while police inspected a suspicious vehicle, was reopened yesterday morning. Apart from Glasgow, all UK airports operated a normal schedule despite vehicle restrictions.

The clampdown on forecourt access is expected to extend delays at major airports. Stansted is expecting queueing times of more than an hour at passport control this summer as the Home Office installs scanning machines at immigration desks. Security guidelines imposed last year following the disruption of an alleged liquid bomb plot have already added to the average queueing time at big airports, with Heathrow criticised by business leaders in recent months.

Security experts said further operational changes were likely at airports following the Glasgow attack. Norman Shanks, former head of security at BAA, the UK's biggest airport owner, said security checkpoints should be set up on roads leading to terminal forecourts. "It is a relatively straightforward risk to deal with," he said.

Mr Shanks, who helped the government draw up anti-car bomb guidelines a decade ago, added that road checkpoints could be automated, as with US toll roads, to allow buses and taxis through with minimal checks. Airport owners were also warned that until changes are made they remain vulnerable to a Glasgow-style attack.

Alan Hatcher, principal of the International School for Security and Explosives Education, said: "The majority of airports in the UK are at risk and open to a similar form of attack ... Concrete bollards placed about a metre apart would stop virtually all vehicles from being used to attack an airport in this way."

Rail travel was affected too as armed police stepped up random searches at station drop-off points.

British Transport police said: "We have no specific intelligence that stations are under threat, but we are using visible deterrent and disruption tactics." Patrols have been increased on the London underground network, but police are focused on protecting transport infrastructure susceptible to another car bomb attack.

Stricter controls

Heathrow

Terminal forecourts are closed to vehicles but the central bus station is open. Taxis can use outer areas of forecourts. Car drivers are allowed to use the short-stay car parks at the four terminals to pick up and drop off passengers. The Heathrow Express train service is operating and Heathrow's tube stations are open.

Gatwick

Forecourts at north and south terminals are closed. Passenger pick up and drop off restricted to short-stay car parks, but buses are allowed to use terminal forecourts. The Gatwick Express train service is operating as normal.

Glasgow

Completely closed to cars, but taxis and buses are allowed to use a road close to the main terminal.

Stansted

The forecourt outside the terminal is closed to all vehicles. Buses are being directed to the outer forecourt and the bus station is still open. Drivers must use the short-stay car park.

Manchester

Taxis and cars are barred from the forecourts.

Edinburgh

No private vehicles beyond the Hilton hotel car park and the short-stay car park is closed. Drivers must drop off and pick up passengers at the park-and-ride site by the A8. The outer forecourt is open to taxis and buses.

Rail stations

Vehicle access to car parks and drop-off points is not restricted but police are stepping up stop-and-search procedures on vehicles. Armed police are also patrolling stations.

Heathrow Express

Police will patrol some high-profile services such as the Heathrow Express.

    Summer of delays and disruption ahead as airports tighten security, G, 2.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2116244,00.html

We need Muslims to do more

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 01/07/2007
The Daily Telegraph
By Philip Johnston



Home front

This Saturday is the second anniversary of the murderous attacks on the London transport system that killed 52 travellers and four suicide bombers. It is only thanks to luck, and an apparent lack of expertise on the terrorists' part, that dozens more families are not mourning the loss of their loved ones. The failed car bombs in London, and what seems to have been a suicide attack at Glasgow airport, are an alarming escalation in the campaign being waged by fanatical Islamists principally, for the moment, against this country. So concerned are the counter-terrorist agencies that the threat level has been raised to "critical" - the highest grade, last reached after the July 7 atrocities.

It goes without saying that we have a serious problem here. But consider how serious it really is. Although they were only jailed recently, the terrorists who planned to use a fertiliser bomb to target nightclubs and shopping centres were operating in 2003-4, more than a year before the London attacks. So, too, was the jihadi cell led by Dhiren Barot, a hardened and experienced al-Qa'eda operative, whose plot - possibly to detonate a "dirty bomb" - was thwarted only because arrests in Pakistan alerted Western intelligence services to what was going on.

advertisementLast summer's alleged airline plot, smashed by MI5's Operation Overt, could have caused the most appalling carnage, as well as halting transatlantic flights and leading America to impose even more Draconian travel restrictions than are already in place. The London car bombs, had they gone off, could have killed or maimed many revellers in the heart of the West End. There is a pattern emerging here of good intelligence intercepting a number of conspiracies; of inexperienced, almost exclusively home-grown, terrorists who have yet to acquire the expertise to make each attack work; and of a co-ordinated, al-Qa'eda-inspired campaign that is seeking to ratchet up the scale of the terror every time.

What the al-Qa'eda commanders based in the Pakistan border areas want is a "spectacular" attack, and they are getting perilously close to pulling one off. They have evidently created a sophisticated cell structure, using the large Pakistani community living in Britain as cover, because those within it who are prepared to carry out terror attacks can come and go as they please between the two countries.

MI5 is watching a lot of these cells, unsure which are false leads and which are the ones that will go live. According to the Security Service, nearly 2,000 Britons linked to al-Qa'eda are under surveillance, and as many as 30 potential terrorist plots are being tracked. We can only assume that the cell that carried out the latest attacks was not under close observation, since its members would have been intercepted before planting their bombs. In other words, despite the extraordinary number of suspects being watched, there will inevitably be potential terrorists of whom MI5 is unaware.

But the police and intelligence agencies are only as good as the information they receive. There is an increasingly important role to be played here by the Muslim community. It was notable yesterday that when Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, spoke about the Glasgow attack, he was at pains to say it should not lead to suspicion falling on the Muslim community. "Individuals are responsible for their actions, not communities," he said.

Mr Salmond is, of course, correct. To tarnish a whole group of people because of the activities of a few would be wrong. But this approach is too defensive, too apologetic. Instead of bending over backwards to reassure the Muslim community that it is not to blame, political leaders should be actively seeking to recruit its help. In a truly integrated society, we all have a duty to protect each other from those who would destroy it; and the majority of law-abiding Muslims are in the best position to help because, like it or not, the perpetrators live in their communities.

The arguments over why a small group of radicalised British Muslims, many of them from good backgrounds and well educated, hate this country so much that they want to inflict serious harm on it have been well rehearsed. Grievances over Iraq or foreign policy in the Middle East are known to be motivating factors, though there are many people who also feel strongly about these issues who do not then use them as justification for mass murder. "Social exclusion" has also been blamed, though many of the conspirators jailed recently have been far from down-trodden, and at least three were university graduates. In any case, the levels of deprivation that would even remotely justify such intense hostility do not exist here.

Ed Husain, an ex-jihadist British Muslim, has pointed out in this newspaper that because Islamists shun all engagement with British democracy, there is a need for politicians to confront the spread of the violent ideology that influenced him before he turned away from it. But it is little good Gordon Brown or the new Home Secretary calling for militant Islam to be faced down unless this message also comes from within the Muslim communities.

There are those who fear the continuing terror campaign places Muslims at risk of being scapegoated as a potential fifth column in our midst. But to focus exclusively on what Mr Salmond called the "responsible individuals", it is necessary to know a lot more about where they come from and what they are up to. For that the police and MI5 have to rely on information provided from their neighbours, even their families. Is this forthcoming? Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command, recently alleged that some people were withholding information about the July 7 bombings. "I know it for a fact," he said.

Everyone must play his part if this threat is truly to be confronted. Politicians are often too concerned about offending the majority of Muslims, and therefore blind to opportunities to recruit their help. The Government says it wants to win their hearts and minds. This should not be necessary when we are dealing with mass murder. It is their eyes and ears we need.

    We need Muslims to do more, DTel, 2.7.2007, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/07/02/do0202.xml

Nicked: Doc and wife in a burka

July 02, 2007
The Sun
By MIKE SULLIVAN
Crime Editor
and ANDREW PARKER

 

THE suspected ringleader of a plot to unleash a blitz of car bombs on Britain is an Iranian doctor arrested with his burka-clad wife.

Neurologist Dr Mohammed Asha, 26, and his wife, 27, were dramatically held as they drove on the M6 in Cheshire with their two-year-old son.

Five people were being quizzed — at least two of them medics — as it became clear the attacks in London and Glasgow were by the same gang.

One of two men held while trying to smash a blazing vehicle into a Glasgow Airport terminal on Saturday afternoon has been named as Bilal Abdulla, who trained as a doctor in Baghdad, Iraq.

He was resgistered to work in the UK since August.

Security bosses believe the two men in Glasgow also drove two Mercedes cars laden with petrol and gas canisters used in a failed bid to devastate London’s West End early on Friday.

The Ashas were arrested by officers from a West Midlands counter-terrorism unit at 9.17pm on Saturday.

It is thought the car they were driving flashed up on a number plate recognition camera, which alerted cops to their whereabouts.

Dr Asha and his wife were forced to a stop when their car was boxed in by police in the northbound carriageway near Sandbach, Cheshire.

Their home 12 miles away in a cul-de-sac in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Staffs, was being searched by forensic officers yesterday.

Dr Asha has just started a job at the North Staffordshire Hospital in nearby Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent.

But it is feared he may also be the head of an al-Qaeda cell. Anti-terror cops also carried out a search of his locker at the hospital.

A security source said: “It is shocking that a doctor, of all people, could be arrested over an attempt to kill and maim hundreds of people.”

Yesterday neighbours of the doctor said he and his wife had hardly any visitors during their year in the house. But in the past two weeks two Asian men with long beards had turned up in a car on several occasions and stayed the night.

Dr Asha has rented the smart property for the past 12 months from landlord Wendy Weaver, 53.

She let the house after emigrating to Dubai and left her son Simon Plant, 33, who lives round the corner, to help service the property.

Lift engineer Simon said: “Dr Asha dressed in Muslim style, with a flat woollen hat, and he sports a beard.

“His wife always wore a burka. He was paying £500-a-month rent and was in many ways the ideal tenant.

“There were lots of medical books lying around. My mum says the doctor had contacted her and said he intended leaving in July.”

Dr Asha and his wife, who is thought to be from the Middle East, were driven to London’s Paddington Green police station, along with a suspect arrested in Liverpool and one of the men arrested at Glasgow airport.

Reports that up to three suspects were still on the run were dismissed last night by security sources speaking to The Sun.

Two Mercedes cars were used in Friday’s failed bid to blast the packed Tiger Tiger club in London.

On Saturday two men drove a blazing Jeep Cherokee filled with petrol and gas canisters into a terminal building at Glasgow Airport. One of them suffered 90 per cent burns after setting himself on fire while crying: “Allah, Allah.”

They are believed to have come from the Middle East a year ago.

Hero Steve Clarkson told how he helped cops grab the burning man as he got out of the car. He said: “I knocked the Asian fellow to the ground. Four police then got on top of him. He was smouldering.”

The bomber is seriously ill. A controlled explosion took place at Glasgow’s Royal Alexandria Hospital where he was being treated yesterday. It is believed a suspect device had been found in a white BMW in the car park.

It emerged that police were hunting the Glasgow terrorists hours before they struck. They tried to get in touch with the letting agent responsible for the house suspects shared in Houston, Renfrewshire.

But their message was only picked up ten minutes before the attack. The house was searched yesterday. Ian Thomson, 25, who lives opposite, said it was occupied by two Asian men. He added: “We thought one was a doctor. He would leave wearing blue scrubs and a stethoscope.” The fifth suspect was arrested in Liverpool on Saturday after cops stopped a car in Lime Street.

Two houses in the city were also raided. Student Declan Murphy, 22, who lives near one of the properties, said: “We thought the two Asian men there were student doctors. I once saw one of them with a stethoscope round his neck.”

Hundreds of people were evacuated at London Heathrow airport last night and an unattended suitcase blown up by the bomb squad. It did not contain explosives.

Dr Asha and his wife can now be held until Saturday, the Metropolitan Police said.

A spokesman said warrants have been granted to extend the detention of the couple and the 26-year-old man arrested in Liverpool on Saturday.

    Nicked: Doc and wife in a burka, S, 2.7.2007, http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2007300339,00.html

We stand firm

July 02, 2007
The Sun

WHEN Gordon Brown says “we will not yield”, it’s not empty rhetoric.

It’s a firm prediction based on our nation’s history and character.

Hitler’s Blitz merely hardened our resolve against the Nazis. Two decades of IRA atrocities similarly failed to dent London’s spirit.

The brainwashed Islamist fanatics who have chosen mass murder as a way of life are beyond reason, of course. But they should know the futility of their acts.

Tow-truck driver Antonio Norte inadvertently carried across London a car bomb that could have blown him to smithereens. Did he take six months off with post-traumatic stress? No. He strolled into work the next day as if nothing had happened.

In Glasgow, Stephen Clarkson was confronted by a hulking terrorist ready to fight to the last. His reaction? To punch him in the face.

Most Britons see these wannabe terrorists as misfits and losers. They refuse to be cowed by them.

The Prime Minister has urged the public to be vigilant, but to go on “living their lives as normal”.

Consider it done, Gordon.

    We stand firm, S, 2.7.2007, http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,31-2007300299,00.html

Johann Hari:
The jihadis hate not just the worst acts of our rulers,
but the best aspects of our society

The bombers are not only opposing Guantanamo Bay, but the freedom of women to choose their partners

Published: 02 July 2007
The Independent

So the jihadists who pine for 7/7 and 24/7 are back, trying to make a Brown week into a black one. It is only luck that their incompetence turned their attempts at mass murder in London and Glasgow into a scene from "Carry On Up the Jihad", where one of their car bombs was towed away and their merry tossing of Molotov cocktails succeeded only in incinerating themselves.

But as we sit anxiously on the highest security alert, the old question is back. Why? Why would young British men (and they will probably turn out to be British) want to murder randomly as many of their fellow citizens as possible in nightclubs and airports?

The French intellectual Regis Debray once called car-bombs "manifestos written in the blood of others". What does this manifesto say? I have interviewed jihadis and wannabe-suicide-murderers from London to Gaza, from Abu Hamza's hooks to the teenagers he inspired. Their motives are a black gloop of contradictions, but let's look at the two over-arching - and conflicting - explanations that have been most frequently served up for home-grown jihad, because both contain some truths.

We can call the first the Blowback Thesis. In the early 1950s, the CIA invented this term to describe the unintended consequences that would hit the United States as a result of its interfering in other countries. Its application here is obvious: turn Iraq into a killing field, and some Muslims back in Britain will be so enraged that they will - to use the old phrase coined by violent anti-Vietnam protesters - "bring the war home".

The exponents of this view have some impressive evidence on their side. In the videos they left behind, the July 7 bombers named the British government's invasion of Iraq and its support for Israel as their primary motives. Britain's own Joint Intelligence Committee had warned before the war began that "the threat [from al Qa'ida] would be heightened by military action against Iraq."

But the blowback thesis also contains holes. It can make the jihadis sound far more humanitarian than they actually are. One expert declared this weekend on the BBC World Service that these bombers are "outraged by the killing of civilians in Afghanistan" - but actually, these Islamists vehemently support the killing of Afghan civilians, as long as it's being done by Jihadis Like Us. When the Taliban were butchering civilians in Afghanistan for the "crimes" of adultery, homosexuality or simply being female and showing their faces in public, they held them up as a model for the world. Abu Hamza told me it was "the perfect society".

A bigger problem still with this thesis is that jihadist bombs have been recently planted on trains in Germany (thankfully defused), while in Canada a plot was rumbled to behead the Prime Minister. Both countries vehemently opposed the war in Iraq and offer vast sums in aid to the Palestinians.

So blowback is a necessary but not sufficient explanation for these bombings. What fills the holes? We can call the second explanation the Totalitarianism Thesis. This argues that jihadism is not simply a mirror-image of what our governments do to Muslims: it has its own vision of a renewed Islamic Caliphate under sharia law that it wishes to impose on the Middle East - and eventually the world.

In the absence of achieving this impossible goal, jihadis will voraciously seek out grievances, based on the failure of the world around them to conform to their puritanical desert morality.

Is this true? A few hours before the first car bomb was discovered, a contributor to the chatroom on the Islamist al-Hesbah website wrote: "Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed." He gave his reasons for the murder plot he was clearly involved in: the Iraq war, and - just as important - the honouring of perhaps our greatest novelist, Salman Rushdie.

The choice of target - a nightclub on Ladies' Night - is also revealing. When a similar gang plotted to blow up the Ministry of Sound in 2004, they talked about their desire to burn alive the "slags dancing around".

This is a reminder that the bombers are not only blowing back against the worst in our system of government: the torture and chemical weapons in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and our support for Arab dictators. They oppose the best in our system of government too: the intellectual freedom to write novels that question religion, the sexual freedom of women to pick their own partners.

When I receive my own tedious drizzle of jihadi death-threats, they always mention my homosexuality long before they get round to my views on foreign policy. Their jihad is a war against free women, gays and novelists, as well as a war against occupation.

On all fronts, the solution lies not in abandoning the values of liberal democracy, but in adhering to them much more scrupulously. If we restrain our leaders whenever they try to violate our values by using torture, or chemical weapons, or by arming tyrants - indeed, if we put them on trial for it - we will choke off the more obvious blowback.

But that's not enough. We also need to unpick the totalitarian ideology of jihadism by democratically opening up Islamic theology, so that over a generation, fewer and fewer young men can convince themselves they are "good Muslims" when they murder innocents.

At the moment, there is an epic battle going on within Islam between jihadi literalists and those Muslims (disproportionately women) who want to reinterpret the Koran to make it compatible with modernity. This is a horrifyingly lop-sided fight. The literalists are lavished with cash from the Saudi Arabian monarchy: their mosques are flooded with petrodollars, their imams are trained in Mecca, they receive piles of poisonous textbooks free of charge, and they are even given British government cash to run their own schools. The liberals, by contrast, scrape by with almost no funds at all.

We need to reverse this situation by banning the Saudi money designed to fundamentalise British Islam, and instead lavishing government cash on the brave Muslim women's groups sprouting across the country. Free, independent Muslim women will raise their children with liberal readings of the Koran incompatible with blowing up "slags" or novelists.

The French government has just begun to do this, with the President, Nicolas Sarkozy, appointing the heroic Muslim feminist Fadela Amara to devise his strategy for the banlieues. But our government is failing to stop the Saudi poison because we are addicted to the oil they pump our way. As in Iraq, it seems that securing petroleum trumps undermining fundamentalism every time.

Until we complete this slow work of whittling down blowback and opening up Islam, we could face a car park full of car-bombs - and we may not be so lucky next time.

    Johann Hari: The jihadis hate not just the worst acts of our rulers, but the best aspects of our society, I, 2.7.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2727882.ece

Muslim groups

'appalled by sinister plot'

Published: 02 July 2007
The Independent
By Rob Sharp

Community leaders were yesterday quick to condemn the terror attacks in Glasgow and London, while politicians played down fears of a backlash against British Muslims.

MPs, Muslim organisations and police chiefs were universal in their condemnation of events and emphasised the moderation of the vast majority of British Muslims. Mohammad Sarwar, the MP for Glasgow Central, led calls to condemn extremists who "brainwash" British-born Muslims, adding the Glasgow outrage had come as a major shock in a country in which mosques preach a moderate message.

He said: "This is a big surprise ... we were not expecting this type of incident in Scotland. This is the first incident that has happened in Glasgow and everybody is shocked and terrified."

Campaigners from the British Muslim Initiative issued a statement damning the incidents. A spokesman said: "We urge all British Muslims to fully co-operate with the authorities to apprehend and bring to justice the perpetrators."

The organisation's president Muhammad Sawalha added: "We are utterly appalled by this sinister plot and commend the professionalism of the security services in aborting it."

Osama Saeed, Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, said: "Terrorists do not care who they kill. We are seething with anger about this."

Police chiefs in areas where police inquiries are proceeding spoke out to calm the public. Staffordshire Police Chief Superintendent Steve Loxley said: "In spite of the current police activity, I do need to stress that there is no specific threat to our county."

Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, played down the possibility of a backlash against Muslims in light of the attacks. He said: "I would expect Scotland to behave with its usual perfect good sense in these matters ... No community should feel under suspicion as a result of individual actions."

    Muslim groups 'appalled by sinister plot', I, 2.7.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2727899.ece

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown:

Sane, ordinary Muslims

must stand up and be counted

These nihilists undermine
our fundamental right to belong in this country

Published: 02 July 2007
The Independent

As they wake up to news of the foiled car-bomb attack on Glasgow Airport, I know what millions of my compatriots - atheists, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews and Christians - will be saying, their easy Sunday ruined by yet another alleged Islamicist plot: "What's wrong with these crazed Muslims?" "Why the hell are they here if they hate it so much?" "When will we be rid of the lot of them?" "What do they want?" "Other minorities also have a hard time, they don't blow up nightclubs and airports".

What these aggrieved Britons don't realise is that exactly the same conversations are taking place in most Muslim households too, with many more expletives flying. Sane, ordinary British Muslims are even less forgiving of such nihilists, whose barbarism undermines our fundamental right to belong to this country as absolute equals. These are hobby terrorists with screwdrivers and screwed heads; they appropriate legitimate concerns, turn them into excuses on their own violent reality shows, sure to be broadcast again and again on screens around the world.

With no politics, no aim, no dreams, no noble imperative, for these Islamicists and their ideological masters, the means is the end. They are at once satanic abusers of our faith and social misfits unloved by all except their own reject band of brothers. Scorned by those they claim to defend, the dreaded sociopaths now seem determined to wound fatally the social contract made between this country and Muslim citizens. Only each assault deepens our sense of nationhood. We still rail against racism and unethical government policies - and I do so incessantly, as you know. Unlike self-righteous neocon liberals, we see how our young are profoundly affected by Iraq and Palestine. However, when bloodthirsty Islamicists strike, we experience a collective intensification of our attachment to Britain. There is no place like this home for us, the only place we want to live and die in.

On Saturday night, at a lavish Shia wedding in Hertfordshire, Muslim guests were livid about "these bastards giving us a bad name". "Send them packing to the Middle East or Pakistan," said a solicitor to much cheering at one table. "Time to say we love this country. For Muslims, no better country - that's why so many want to come over," added a businessman, who had come here penniless and turned his fortunes around within 10 years.

The father of the bride, too, arrived in Britain with little and joined a small English family firm. He brought entrepreneurial energy; they gave him encouragement and support. This ultra-loyal immigrant for many years led the pre-dawn prayers at our main mosque in Kensington.

As we enter another hyper-crisis period, the danger is we will again succumb to the dystopian nightmare of irreconcilable clashes and culture wars. Calls for draconian laws are sure to ring through the nervous land, although thus far the new government sounds more temperate.

The measured response is an acknowledgement that few Muslims now excuse the killing brigades. The apologist Muslim Council of Britain, whose leader was knighted by Mr Blair, is a spent force. It tried to incite rage and riot over Salman Rushdie's knighthood and failed. Muslims realise what a disaster that confrontation was for both sides. Now, the MCB grovels and seeks rehabilitation. Ex-militant Ed Hussain and Hassan Butt have written denunciations of fellow jihadis. The hardline Hizb-ut Tahrir asks Muslims not to "fuel dangerous political agendas". These organisations have been humbled and discredited.

One Independent reader, a graduate, described how Islamicists operated on campus. An idealistic young woman, she fell for the leader, a charismatic man who all too soon did her head in and wrapped it up in a cloak of his choosing: "He commanded me to declare I hate this country and got me into a niqab. Then one day I heard him chatting up this new student and he was saying exactly the same things to her as he said to me when we met, about beautiful eyes, and how he loved women with spirit. I told him to bugger off." Her hair is lovely in the photo she sent me, free now as she is.

I am not naive. Islamicists are cunning and well-connected. Their backers pretend to believe in liberal democracy while plotting its demise. But there are now passionate Muslim democrats standing up to be counted.

Imran Ahmad, young trustee of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, writes in Unimagined, his evocative memoir: "I have had great opportunities and choices. There still is racism in the indigenous society, it's undeniable ... but [compare] Britain to all those so-called Islamic countries, where tribalism is endemic and anything is used as an excuse for discrimination, hatred and mistreatment: village, clan, family, sect, province, class, money, gender, occupation, even shade of skin. At least Britain is committed to implement the highest ideals - personal freedom, social equality, human rights and justice."

With friends like these, Britain can beat its enemies within. Have faith; a time will come when jihadis will terrorise our lives no more.

    Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Sane, ordinary Muslims must stand up and be counted, I, 2.7.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/yasmin_alibhai_brown/article2727903.ece

Leading article:

The need for calm, caution and intelligence

Published: 02 July 2007
The Independent

As we approach the second anniversary of the London bombings, Britain is once again is in a state of high alert. Saturday's attack on Glasgow airport seems to have been carried out by the same group that planted two car bombs in central London last week. It seems wise for the authorities - and, indeed, the public - to prepare for the possibility that there could be more attacks to come.

This, of course, represents a baptism of fire for the new Prime Minister. It is encouraging that Gordon Brown had the presence of mind to point out yesterday that our response to the threat of terrorism must include measures to win the "hearts and minds" of ordinary Muslims. In the past, ministers have responded to terrorist alerts by focusing exclusively on questions of security. In fact, the way to defeat this modern scourge is by separating the minority of extremists from the moderate majority. However secretive they are, terrorists cannot operate in a vacuum. There will be those around them who suspect, or know, that something dreadful is being planned. It should be a central objective of the Government and the authorities to encourage those who have this information to come forward.

It is also welcome that Mr Brown stressed that people should "carry on living their lives as normal". There is nothing to be gained from bringing the country to a halt. This need for calm applies especially to community relations. It would be a double disaster if these attempted attacks resulted in a backlash against law-abiding Islamic communities in Britain.

However, it is ominous that Mr Brown also spoke of "tougher security measures". It is vital that the Prime Minister does not rush through new repressive anti-terror laws. Mr Brown warned of the need for enhanced security measures at airports and crowded public places, and we have been told to expect extra police patrols and more checks on cars. Such measures are clearly reasonable under the circumstances.

But there are also signs that Mr Brown plans to use these attacks to justify an increase in the amount of time a suspect can be detained without charge by the police. Here, it is vital that our political leaders pause for thought. The arguments against extended detention are as powerful as they were when the Government first proposed it two years ago. As well as being an unwarranted assault on our civil liberties, extended detention has the potential to alienate those very communities whose help the police need to foil future terror plots.

There is another lurking danger with respect to the Government's response to these attacks. Mr Brown rightly argued yesterday that "we have got to recognise what the nature of the threat that we are dealing with is". But does he properly understand it? The Prime Minister spoke of the terrorists' "grievance against society, particularly against the values that we represent". But he made no reference to the boost that Britain's military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have given to the jihadists' propaganda and recruitment efforts.

Much of the evidence collected on home-grown extremists over the past six years suggests they are brainwashed, through a combination of twisted theology and selected evidence of military interventions around the world, into believing that the West is waging a war of oppression against Muslims. That is a different thing from a simple hatred of "our values". And it requires a much subtler policy response from the Government.

Unless Mr Brown moves on from the simple-minded analysis of his predecessor regarding the motivation of these terrorists - and in the measures necessary to contain the threat - he risks making the same mistakes all over again.

    Leading article: The need for calm, caution and intelligence, I, 2.7.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2727864.ece

Andreas Whittam Smith:

A measured response

that bodes well for the future

Where Tony Blair's team was hyperactive,
Mr Brown has instilled calm

Published: 02 July 2007
The Independent

Something has changed already. Immediately following the terrorist attacks in the capital, Jacqui Smith, appointed Home Secretary only the day before, gave the Government's first response rather than the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Mr Brown's own statements have been short and dignified. At Scotland Yard, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke has provided fluent briefings while the Commissioner, the accident-prone Sir Ian Blair, has kept out of the way.

Where Tony Blair's team was hyperactive, Mr Brown has instilled calm. Allowing the Gay Pride march to go ahead in central London on Saturday also demonstrated unflappability.

Here is another novelty: by tomorrow evening the new cabinet will have met three times in four working days, with each session lasting about two hours. That is as much time as Mr Blair needed in a month. In future, cabinet meetings will be held on Tuesday mornings instead of Thursdays to allow more space for discussion. Cynics may say that this change is more apparent than real, for Mr Brown is likely to be dominant. Let us wait and see. Making a reality of cabinet responsibility for Government decisions, if that is what happens, would be to erect a barrier against overweening prime ministerial power.

Mr Brown is to announce proposals for reforming more of Britain's constitutional arrangements this afternoon in the House of Commons. The first test of his intentions will, paradoxically, have been completed by the time he stands up. Has the material already been leaked to the media? If it has, then any statements about restoring the authority of Parliament will need to be treated cautiously. With this in mind, I scrutinised the weekend press carefully. Only the Sunday Times had what appeared to be a well-sourced story.

Whatever else is included in the Prime Minister's statement, two subjects seem to me to be essential. The first is to complete the unfinished business of the 1997 reforms. This would require settling the composition of the House of Lords and its method of appointment. And it would mean dealing with an issue that is beginning to appear scandalous: devolution. For it looks as if the Scottish Parliament is providing more generous social services than are available to people living in England solely because English taxpayers supply a cash subsidy to Scottish taxpayers. In other words, the impression is that the Scots are sticking their hands into English pockets. It would be dangerous to let this go uncorrected.

The second essential is to repair the machinery of government. No more departments of state should have to be declared unfit for purpose, as the Home Office was said to be by its then Secretary of State, John Reid. No longer, to take another example, should the Treasury, as it did in Mr Brown's time, both underpay and overpay tax credits to poor families and then seek to make good the mistakes, causing untold misery in the process. Some £6bn has been lost in this way since 2003. Never again, to take a recent instance, should a well-tried system for selecting doctors for training be replaced by an online form-filling exercise in which their academic records and experience count for very little - which the Secretary of State was forced to withdraw after defending unworkable plans.

Constitutional arrangements, with their many moving parts and varying relationships, are like the engine of a car. So long as the vehicle is running along nicely, few people are interested enough to lift the bonnet and study the pistons and valves. But once the car begins to splutter, or even develop a tendency to swerve off the road, then dealing with mechanical faults becomes a priority. Mr Brown understands this. And that is why constitutional reform is the subject of his first statement as Prime Minister to the House of Commons.

At the same time, the malfunctioning of our government and political system has stimulated an enormous number of private initiatives. On the internet, I keep in touch with OpenDemocracy, a website on global current affairs, (www.opendemocracy.org.uk) and its useful offshoot, OurKingdom. Various campaign groups, including the Electoral Reform Society, Unlock Democracy and Make-It-An-Issue, have taken out full-page advertisements in newspapers to highlight their cause. A Citizens' Convention Bill, published last week, attracted cross-party sponsorship.

MyForeignPolicyToo asks who should decide when it comes to war, peace and diplomacy. The Conservatives, led by Ken Clarke MP, have published their own reform proposals and so have the Lib Dems. The Power Inquiry has been in the field since 2004. It explores how political participation and involvement can be increased and deepened in Britain. Its recommendations spring from its view that a healthy democracy requires the active participation of its citizens.

In his statement, Mr Brown is likely to range much more widely than the few issues I have marked as essential. If he does embrace the drawing up of a bill of rights, the transfer of the old royal powers from the prime minister of the day to Parliament, including the decision to go to war, the confirmation by MPs of appointments to key public posts, then, by his fifth day in office, the Prime Minister would have taken decisions that would command a permanent place in the history books. Something would indeed have changed and, for my taste, very much for the better.

    Andreas Whittam Smith: A measured response that bodes well for the future, I, 2.7.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/andreas_whittam_smith/article2727869.ece

Brown's message to terrorists:

'We will not be intimidated.

Terror will not undermine our way of life'

Published: 02 July 2007
The Independent
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor

Gordon Brown delivered an uncompromising message to Islamic extremists behind the car bomb plots in London and Glasgow yesterday that Britain "will not yield" to terrorism, but warned of stringent security measures and continued disruption across the country.

There was speculation the bombers may have been trying to put pressure on the new Prime Minister after the departure of Tony Blair to speed the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. But Mr Brown said he would not change course.

"We will not yield, we will not be intimidated," the Prime Minister said. "It's very important that people carry on living their lives as normal. It's very important that we, the British people, send a message to terrorists that they will not be allowed to undermine our British way of life."

The alert state was raised to "critical", signalling the threat of further terrorist attacks was imminent, after Mr Brown chaired a meeting of Cobra, the emergency planning committee.

Mr Brown said tighter security across Britain could cause disruption with longer queues at airports, and police checks in "crowded places" such as city centres and rail stations. Drivers may also be delayed for roadside checks for explosive devices.

MPs' staff and government officials returning to the Palace of Westminster and Whitehall for work today face lengthy queues, as bomb checks are imposed on workers in spite of their security passes.

Mr Brown said: "I've got to appeal to members of the public to understand that when we've had an attempted attack an airport, the security measures have to be increased. Whether it's checks as people go into the airports or whether its also more police patrols, or whether it may be barriers people have to come through, these will be on the basis of an assessment made on the ground for particular airports.

"We have got to take measures in crowded places and you will see a greater police presence and you will see in some cases further measures to enhance security there. And people may expect checks of cars."

The terrorist attacks forced Mr Brown to postpone a statement scheduled for today on sweeping constitutional changes, including giving Parliament a right to a vote on Britain going to war. He is planning controversial measures in an anti-terrorism Bill inherited from Mr Blair. The Bill will reopen the row over 90-day detention of suspects without charge. But senior officials said Mr Brown wants to avoid it being seen as a "knee-jerk" reaction to the weekend attacks.

Mr Brown has already had talks with David Cameron, the Tory leader, on anti-terrorism legislation to try to seek a consensus. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, hinted the Tories may be prepared to move on their objection to an extension of 28-day detention.

The Tories suggested privy councillors should investigate using phone tap evidence in terrorist cases, which has been resisted by the intelligence services, and Mr Brown has ordered the review There is also cross-party support for suspects to be questioned after they are charged.

Mr Brown rejected claims that the war in Iraq had contributed to the terrorist attacks in Britain. "The terrorist threat is long term and it's sustained. It is about those people who are essentially violent extremists who have a grievance against society, particularly against the values that we represent and the values that decent people in all religions represent. It is their intention to inflict the maximum of damage in any part of the world to make their propaganda point. Of course we want greater peace and security in Iraq and Afghan-istan. Making progress in the Middle East with Palestine and Israel will make a difference."

He added: "Anybody I talk to, a leader in any part of the world, knows we're dealing with a long-term threat unrelated in detail to one specific point of conflict in the world, but is a general view that is held by a group of terrorist extremists about the shape of the world they want to create."

Mr Brown compared the battle against Islamic extremism to the ideological battle by the West against Communism. "We've got to separate those great moderate members of our community from a few extremists who wish to practise violence and inflict maximum loss of life in the interest of the perversion of their religion." It would require action to win "hearts and minds" as well as security and military measures, he said. "That's why the cultural effort, similar to what happened during the Cold War in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, when we had to mount a propaganda effort to explain to people that our values represented the best of commitments to individual dignity to liberty and to human life being taken seriously. And that's what we are going to have to talk about in the next few years."

The celebrity concert in memory of Diana, the Princess of Wales, went ahead at Wembley with the Princes William and Harry present.

    Brown's message to terrorists: 'We will not be intimidated. Terror will not undermine our way of life' , I, 2.7.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2727849.ece

Terror at Terminal 1:

Horrific scenes

as two men crash Jeep into airport

'The man was on fire, like a scene from a horror film'. Horrified eyewitnesses describe the moment when two 'Asian-looking' men rammed a burning 4x4 into the terminal of Glasgow airport and the dramatic struggle that followed

Published: 01 July 2007
The Independent on Sunday
By Raymond Whitaker and Marie Woolf

Britain was on maximum alert last night after a burning 4x4 Jeep Cherokee was rammed into the terminal building at Glasgow airport, triggering fears that the two failed car bombs in London marked the start of an organised terror campaign.

With Britain in the grip of a new wave of terror attacks, the Government raised its threat assessment to "critical", the highest level indicating that further attacks are imminent.

Yesterday afternoon, passengers waiting to check in for flights from Glasgow scattered as the blazing vehicle, said to have two Asian men inside, smashed into the building at speed and became jammed in an entrance at 3.11pm. According to witnesses, one man climbed out and tried to throw more petrol on the flames from a canister, while the other sought to force the Jeep further into the terminal as people ran screaming from the scene.

"There was absolute chaos," said a witness, James Edgar. " [The driver] was very close to getting to a place that was holding maybe 200 people. There was no emotion on his face whatsoever. The crowd were shouting at him, but he just stared straight ahead."

Police raced over and struggled with the two men, one of whose clothes were on fire. "He looked like something from a horror film," said Robin Patterson, from Rochester in Kent. "His skin was peeling, his hair was all burnt. You couldn't see what colour he was, just that he was a big man." According to onlookers, the man briefly struggled free and tried to open the boot of the vehicle before he was finally dragged away.

Police said last night there had been no intelligence prior to the incident that Scotland was about to be attacked. They said they were treating the incident as a terrorist attack and that it was linked to the failed car bombings in London on Friday.

Chief Constable Willie Rae of Strathclyde Police said two men were arrested following the incident. One man, with severe burns, was taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. The emergency department there was then evacuated after a "suspect device" was discovered on him. The man is said to be in a critical condition. Police would not elaborate on the nature of the device, but said it was being investigated and all areas of the Royal Alexandra had later been reopened. Amazingly, only one other person, who was treated for a leg injury, was hurt in the incident.

At Glasgow airport, which last night remained closed, fire crews struggled to put out the fiercely burning Jeep, with the flames spreading to part of the canopy above the pavement outside the terminal. The Jeep, described by police as in a "highly unstable condition", was still at the scene.

Last night hundreds of passengers were left stranded at the airport, many of them on planes delayed from taking off or unable to disembark passengers after arrival. Among them was the sister of Liam Fox, the Conservative shadow defence secretary, and her family. Passengers were told they would not be allowed off the planes until police had conducted a thorough search of the building.

The drama worsened national jitters caused by news the previous day that two "viable" car bombs, which would have caused carnage had they exploded, had been discovered in London. Later Blackpool airport was closed by police. The set-down road to Birmingham airport was also closed and there were several other brief alarms.

Yesterday afternoon Scott Leeson was waiting for a colleague on an arriving flight in Glasgow. "Fortunately his plane was delayed," he said. " There were a couple of explosions. My main concern was to ring my colleague with his young family. He would have been coming out of that door had his plane not been delayed. There was a lull at that point, and there weren't as many people around. If it had happened 10 minutes earlier, there would have been fatalities."

Gordon Brown, confronted with a terror crisis immediately on taking office as Prime Minister, last night chaired the second emergency meeting in 24 hours of the Government's Cobra security co-ordination committee. Afterwards he said, "I know that the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong."

Terror analysts said the authorities' first concern would be to establish whether the Glasgow incident was related to the attempted bombings in London or was a hastily improvised attack.

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said after the Cobra meeting: "I can confirm that the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre has raised the national threat level to critical. Critical is the highest level of threat, and the threat level will be closely reviewed on a regular basis. Appropriate security measures have been put in place."

Experts believe the Government may extend police powers to stop and search members of the public in areas under possible threat, such as railway stations.

The last time the threat level was raised from "severe" to " critical" was in August last year, when transatlantic flights were disrupted by a terror warning. The level was reduced after four days, but restrictions on air passengers remain in place.

The new warning shows the security service, MI5, believes another terror attack may be imminent. But experts drew some comfort from the fact that none of the attacks had so far succeeded in causing mass casualties. Last night police were still examining a wealth of forensic material from the two Mercedes cars left in central London, packed with gas cylinders, brimming petrol canisters and, in one case, bags of nails. Both cars had incendiary devices which were to have been set off by calling mobile phones wired to the devices.

According to one report, the would-be bombers tried to detonate each car bomb twice, without success. Had they succeeded, experts believe they would have created huge fireballs and blasted nails and metal fragments over a 100-metre radius, killing or maiming anyone within range.

An explosives expert said the failure of the attempted bombings in London " shows that the security service clampdown on bomb-making materials, like buying large quantities of fertiliser, is working. These terrorists have had to resort to buying petrol and gas canisters, which would not raise any questions. As a result, the bomb may be lethal, but not on the same scale as Semtex bombs."

Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of terrorist legislation, urged people to be "vigilant in the extreme"."I am not the least surprised that the violent jihadists have moved on to car bombs," he added.

"There is a long history of car bombs in Baghdad and Israel. People must be prepared to report things they would not normally report."

A security analyst said the terrorists' apparent inability to carry out " spectaculars" could mean a switch of tactics to attacks aimed at " making the public feel uneasy wherever they go", causing disruption and economic damage.

'There were a couple of explosions. Everyone panicked'

Shocked witnesses described last night how a burning 4x4 smashed into the front of Glasgow airport terminal in Paisley. They said two men climbed out of the Jeep Cherokee, poured petrol on the fire and fought police. The men were taken away in handcuffs...

"The man was burning. His clothes were on fire. His skin was peeling as he was fighting the police. The explosion was like a pop. There were loud bangs as well. People said the men were pouring petrol as they crashed."

Mark McAdam

"I was yards away. The men were throwing petrol about, trying to cause as much damage as possible. There were a couple of explosions. If it had happened 10 minutes earlier there would have been fatalities."

Scott Leeson

"It was frightening. [The vehicle] was probably on fire for five minutes before the fire people got to it. Everybody panicked. The police were scuffling with an Asian gentleman. He looked like he had hurt his leg. He was very close to a place holding maybe 200 people. There was no emotion on his face. The crowd was shouting at him but he just stared straight ahead. "

James Edgar

"There was a man on fire. Somebody with a hose put the gentleman out. He was very agitated on the floor. Maybe he was in shock. Then he started to fight with the officers. After 30 seconds or so officers had him pinned. Another man was sort of running through the terminal."

Ali Robertson

"The men put the window down and poured a can of petrol over the flames. The passenger got out. The man was lying on the floor, on fire. I thought he was going to die. He staggered away, went to the boot and tried to open it. Then they started fighting with police."

Gordon, no surname given

    Terror at Terminal 1: Horrific scenes as two men crash Jeep into airport, IoS, 1.7.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2725711.ece

Britain under attack

as bombers strike at airport

July 1, 2007
From The Sunday Times
David Leppard

BRITAIN was last night put on its highest state of security alert after an attempted car firebombing at Glasgow airport raised fears of a new wave of terrorist attacks.

Gordon Brown placed the country on a “critical” threat level, indicating that MI5 believes a terrorist attack is expected “imminently”.

In yesterday’s attack in Glasgow, two Asian-looking men crashed a car into the airport’s main terminal building. Police are linking it to the failed car bomb attack in London’s West End early on Friday morning.

Two men were arrested at the airport. Early this morning antiterrorist police announced they had arrested two further people in Cheshire in connection with the attack.

In a televised statement from Downing Street last night, Brown said there would be heightened security at airports and other crowded places. “The first duty of the government is the security and safety of all the British people. So it is right to raise the levels at airports and other crowded places in light of the threat.

“I want all people to be vigilant and support police in light of the difficult decisions they have to make. I know the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong.”

It is understood deployment of troops is also being considered at airports, where authorities yesterday increased security within hours of the Glasgow attack. Tighter security is also expected at today’s tribute concert for Princess Diana at Wembley organised by her sons.

In Glasgow, witnesses described how the two men drove the four-wheel-drive vehicle into the doors of the airport’s main terminal building. One of the men got out of the Jeep Cherokee with his clothes on fire. He was restrained by passengers while others put out the flames with a fire extinguisher.

Eyewitness Jackie Kennedy, 46, described how she watched one of the occupants of the car douse himself in petrol and set himself alight.

“He had a big smirk on his face. He lifted up what appeared to be a five-litre drum, which I think had petrol in it, and set himself on fire. His clothes were melting in front of my very eyes.

“The police tried to pounce on him but he fought back and was struggling with them. It was only when a member of the public punched him in the face that the police managed to restrain him. The police were trying to spray CS gas in his face but it was not working.”

On arrival at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley police said he was found to be wearing a “suspect device” – thought to be a suicide belt. The casualty ward was evacuated and hospital workers reported seeing a policeman run from the building and throw a “belt-like” object into a cricket field.

Late last night the Jeep Cherokee used in the attack had still not been forensically examined and its condition was described as ‘highly unstable.’

William Rae, chief constable of Strathclyde police, said they believed it contained inflammable material.

One witness said bottles of petrol had been shaken inside the vehicle in a bid to set it alight. “It looked like Molotov cocktails,” he said.

Rae admitted he could not rule out the vehicle might contain the remains of a third attacker.

Glasgow airport remained closed last night and more than 1,000 passengers who had been due to depart were held on aircraft on the tarmac for more than six hours before being taken away in buses to the city’s Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre to spend the night.

Liverpool John Lennon airport was also closed last night while police examined a suspect car and all airports in the country stopped motorists using kerb-side drop-off zones to leave and collect passengers.

Two men were arrested at the scene of the Glasgow attack and one was said to be in a critical condition with severe burns.

Within hours of the attack Brown convened a meeting of Cobra, the government’s emergency response committee, to assess the implications. It followed a meeting earlier in the day to discuss the attempted car bombings in the West End.

There, two Mercedes cars were packed with gas cylinders, petrol and nails and primed to detonate within 200 yards of each other as nightclubs emptied onto the streets. Experts say the bombs were designed to create a huge fireball.

Jacqui Smith, the new home secretary, confirmed the raised security alert was “in response to the events of the last 48 hours”. It was last at “critical” last August after the foiled airline bomb plots.

Rae said members of SO15, the Met’s counter-terrorism unit, travelled to Scotland last night to help with the investigation. “We believe the incident at Glasgow airport is linked to the events in London,” he said. “There are very similar features to both incidents and we are able to link both incidents. We can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident.”

He said no advance intelligence had been received about the attempt although ABC News quoted an unnamed American law enforcement officer claiming US officials had received intelligence reports two weeks ago warning of a possible terror attack in Glasgow against “airport infrastructure or aircraft”.

The Yard declined to comment on reports that it had managed to identify three possible suspects in the West End attack.

Well-placed security sources said the Met and MI5 had called in armed surveillance teams from the army’s Special Reconnaissance Regiment to help track down the car bomb suspects. The same unit, along with armed surveillance officers from the Met’s Counter-Terrorist Command (CTC), was involved in a hunt for five alleged would-be suicide bombers.

The Ministry of Defence declined to comment on reports that the regiment and the SAS, which now has a forward base in west London, had been called in to help with the police manhunt.

A senior Whitehall official did say, however, that police hoped for an early breakthrough. “It’s promising. We are on the trail. They [the CTC] are confident they will get to the bottom of it.” The consensus among senior law enforcement officials was that the West End attack bore the hall-marks of an Islamist terror attack directed by “core Al-Qaeda” figures in Pakistan.

Mayor Ken Livingstone urged Londoners to remain vigilant. “The discovery of two potential car bombs in central London, with those responsible still at large, means we face a very real terrorist threat,” he said.

Sources suggested the government was likely to use the latest attacks as an opportunity to impose tougher control orders on those terror suspects it has been unable to jail because of a lack of evidence admissible in court.

Seven of the 17 people so far placed on control orders have absconded in recent months. They include a suspect who was previously said to have been interested in carrying out a car bomb attack against a London night-club. The tougher controls would include longer curfews and police guards on suspects’ homes.

    Britain under attack as bombers strike at airport, STs, 1.7.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2010062.ece

Terror threat 'critical'

as Glasgow attacked

· Airport strike linked to London car bombs
· UK-wide hunt for al-Qaeda cell

Sunday July 1, 2007
Observer
Mark Townsend, Jo Revill and Paul Kelbie

Britain was braced last night for a fresh wave of terrorist attacks as the national threat level was raised to 'critical' following an attempted car bombing of Glasgow airport.

Just four days into his premiership, Gordon Brown was dealing with the most dangerous situation facing Britain since the attacks on London in July 2005. Police and intelligence officers confirmed that there was a direct link between the Scottish attack and the attempted car bombing of London on Friday - confirming the reality of a renewed UK offensive by Islamist extremists.

Last night the Prime Minister summoned intelligence chiefs and ministers before the Cobra emergency committee in Whitehall to discuss the deteriorating security situation. It was agreed to raise the threat level to the highest degree possible, a decision that confirmed another attack is expected imminently.

In a televised address from Downing Street, a sombre-faced Brown urged people to be 'vigilant' and support the police and security services. He said: 'I know that the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong.'

As night fell, armed police began stopping vehicles entering airports throughout the UK after warnings were circulated that a nationwide terror cell is preparing more attacks. Liverpool John Lennon airport was closed at 8.30pm while police investigated a suspect vehicle. Glasgow airport too remained closed.

At 3.11pm, a Jeep Cherokee wreathed in flames was crashed into the doors of the main terminal building at Glasgow. Driven by two 'Asian-looking' men, it came to a halt as they threw petrol over it and appeared to try to detonate the vehicle. With the help of bystanders, the two men were overpowered and arrested. One was fighting for his life last night, after throwing petrol over himself and setting it alight.

There was a further twist last night as the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, where the man was being treated, was evacuated. Strathclyde Police later said that the man had possibly been wearing a suicide vest.

William Rae, chief constable of Strathclyde Police, last night confirmed that the attack on Glasgow airport was linked to the London attempt. 'There are similarities between this incident and those in London. We are treating this as a terrorist incident.' The Jeep attack, bearing the hallmarks, police said, of an al-Qaeda plot, came 36 hours after extremists attempted a double car bomb attack in the heart of London's West End.

Two people were arrested in Cheshire late last night in connection with the London and Glasgow failed terrorist attacks, which appear to have slipped completely under the radar of the security services. The pair were arrested by anti-terrorism officers from the Metropolitian and West Midlands Police.

Intelligence sources confirmed the attack on Glasgow airport appeared to be aimed at killing passengers.

As with the failed London attack, the explosives and gas canisters which appeared to be in the Jeep did not detonate, a stroke of fortune that may again have saved the lives of hundreds.

Witnesses described chaotic scenes as the Jeep sped towards the terminal entrance. Robin Patterson, 42, of Rochester, Kent, saw the car burst into flames. 'There was an enormous explosion,' he said. 'The guy next to the car, his skin and clothes just fell off him.' Another described one of the men throwing punches at police while screaming: 'Allah, Allah'.

The Prime Minister's new terrorism adviser, Lord Stevens, said last night: 'Make no mistake, this weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation by Islamic terrorists.' Meanwhile in London, a massive investigation into what could have been Britain's most deadly terror attack widened last night. Police and intelligence sources told The Observer that they were now investigating the existence of an Islamic terror cell in the capital. One major branch of the inquiry is tracking down a number of terror suspects who have slipped their control orders, a development that raises fresh questions over their effectiveness.

One man being sought is Lamine Adam, 26, who, in evidence at the recent Crevice terror trial that saw five jailed for plotting fertiliser bomb attacks in the UK, allegedly boasted of targeting nightclubs. One of the Mercedes cars involved in the attack was left outside the busy Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, in the centre of the West End. The other Mercedes was found in a nearby street.

Other men urgently wanted by police are his brother Ibrahim, 20, and Cerie Bullivant, 24, who have also evaded control orders. The government's independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, Lord Carlile, has said that there is 'solid evidence' that the trio had wanted to join insurgents abroad and attack British troops serving in Iraq. Security sources said it remains 'possible' that the men were involved in the attempt to bring carnage to London.

After being briefed on the progress of the police investigation, the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, released a statement urging greater vigilance. It read: 'The police are clear that the most important contribution that the public can make is to carry on reporting anything suspicious and to remain vigilant. I must stress we must not let the threat of terror stop us getting on with our lives.'

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, reiterated that the capital faced 'a very real threat' and called on Londoners to be 'vigilant'. Hundreds of extra police were drafted on to the streets to step up security and to reassure the public.

The Gay Pride Festival, which saw hundreds of thousands of people making their way from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square, was accompanied by 350 officers, while extra police were drafted in for the Wimbledon tennis championships and the Diana, Princess of Wales, concert at Wembley.

Among other terror suspects police want to track down are former tube worker and 26-year-old Londoner Zeeshan Siddiqui. A court has heard how he trained with a London suicide bomber in Pakistan.

Another individual police want to track down, even if only to eliminate him from their investigation, is Bestun Salim, who disappeared from his Manchester home last year, and is alleged to have links to Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to the terrorist network of the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's notorious insurgent leader who was killed last year.

    Terror threat 'critical' as Glasgow attacked, O, 1.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115693,00.html

'There was a man on fire.

It was terrifying'

With a screech of tyres and burning petrol, the Jeep headed for Terminal 1 of Glasgow Airport - a third attempt to create terror mayhem in Britain in under 36 hours. Only luck saved lives

Sunday July 1, 2007
The Observer
David Smith, Mark Townsend and Jo Revill

It was the first full day of school holidays in Scotland. James Edgar was with his young daughter, trying to book a holiday, when commotion and terror took hold. 'People ran past me,' he said. 'I thought it was because they were late but then I saw the panic in their eyes. I came outside and the fire had started. People were trying to put it out with extinguishers, but it was having no effect. There were some taxi drivers telling everyone to get back in case there was a bomb in the car. It was a frightening experience.'

The source of panic was a botched terrorist attack at Glasgow airport at about 3.15pm yesterday. A Jeep Cherokee, containing two men of Asian appearance, tried to smash through the glass doors of the crowded terminal one building but became stuck outside. Witnesses said the driver waved a plastic canister which was lit at the top like a Molotov cocktail. Simon Howard said the man was trying to throw it, adding: 'I grabbed my daughter and I screamed to my wife: "Run!"'

The man then appeared to pour gasoline over himself and the car and set both ablaze in a fireball, causing a stampede as people cried out and fled the building. The burning man fought with police and, according to one account, was 'throwing punches and shouting "Allah! Allah"!' A member of the public, Stephen Clarkson, told how he helped police finally detained him. 'I managed to knock the fellow to the ground,' he said. 'By this time there were four policemen who got on top of him and restrained him. His clothes had partially burned from his body. His hair was on fire. His whole body was on fire.'

A fire extinguisher was used to douse the flames. The second man apparently tried to enter the terminal building but was wrestled to the ground by police and members of the public. Both men were arrested and led away in handcuffs, with the badly burned man taken to hospital - the only person injured. Later it emerged a suspect device was found on him, forcing the evacuation of the hospital.

The attack was seemingly inept but it wreaked huge disruption for weekend travellers. Some 35,000 passengers were expected to pass through Glasgow Airport, Scotland's biggest, during the course of yesterday but it was immediately closed and all flights were suspended. Some passengers were left stranded airside, including those on planes unable to disembark. There was a knock-on effect on flights around the country and several airports moved to step up security.

Police said they believed the incident was linked to the planting of two car bombs which failed to detonate in the heart of London just 36 hours earlier. Last night the Government response was swift and decisive. The new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, announced the national terror threat level had been raised to critical, the highest possible, meaning an attack is expected 'imminently'. Gordon Brown addressed the nation after chairing a meeting of the government's Cobra emergency committee.

The week's events tested the new Prime Minister in a way no one could have predicted. Yesterday hundreds of police officers patrolled rain-drenched streets in London in the ongoing investigation to discover how a suspected British-based al-Qaeda cell had threatened the heart of the West End.

Two Mercedes primed with a potentially catastrophic stockpile of petrol, gas and nails had been left in the city centre in the early hours of Friday morning. Fortunately, neither had detonated. The failed attack was discussed at a meeting of Cobra yesterday afternoon. Smith, also undergoing a baptism of fire, issued a statement urging that Britons 'must not let the threat of terror stop us getting on with our lives'. But north of the border a fresh drama was already developing.

There were conflicting reports over whether the jeep was already on fire when it ploughed into a concrete post next to the airport entrance, or whether it was ignited by the driver using gasoline. It is believed the driver tried to reverse slightly before making another attempt to force his way through the glass doors but was prevented by bollards and a tight angle. The vehicle struck directly in front of check-in desks, where dozens of passengers were standing in line to check in for flights.

Jackie Kennedy, 46, a beautician, had stepped out of the airport terminal building for a cigarette as she waited with husband Stephen, 49, for a flight to Dubai. She said: 'There were two men in the car. They eventually got out and the man who was in the passenger seat lay down on the ground.' She added: 'He was on fire - it was terrifying.'

The incidents of the last week, nearly two years after the 7/7 attacks, have underlined the ever-changing terror threat facing the police and security services. Most worrying, concede police sources, is that despite close monitoring of hundreds of suspects nothing on the radar suggested central London, the prized target of al-Qaeda, was on the verge of fresh attack.

Initial concerns suggest that the security services may have switched surveillance from the car bombers on to other suspects, leaving them at liberty to hastily create a plan and target London clubbers early on Friday morning. The security services conceded it was 'possible' they had been monitoring those involved in the double car bomb cell at some stage, which will also fuel the debate on whether MI5 has sufficient resources. Police candidly accept that they cannot monitor everyone they believe is a threat. In reality, only those whom they believe are involved in 'attack planning' are accorded serious attention, with a continual 'managing of risk' between the danger posed by individuals.

About 50 Islamic extremist cells are 'active' in the UK, with about 300 extremists under constant surveillance. These are classified as 'primary investigative targets' and involve individuals the security services have reason to fear are actively seeking to carry out an attack. Some of those categorised as the most dangerous can have up to 24 security service officials monitoring them around the clock.

About 1,500 Britons are known to the police and security services as possible terror suspects, many registered on a database of radicalised individuals regarded as peripheral but susceptible to al-Qaeda's message of terror.

Last week was the first time Islamic extremists have deployed car bombs in Europe, but MI5 and Scotland Yard had been expecting such an attempt on the capital for months. A former Scotland Yard terrorism expert told The Observer in March that British-based operatives would soon start mimicking the massive car bombs used routinely by Iraqi insurgents, and which have killed hundreds so far this year. MI6 is examining if there is an international dimension by looking at travellers to and from Iraq, where car bombs have killed hundreds.

As the manhunt continued for the cell responsible yesterday, attention focused on terror suspects on the run from control orders, which will raise fresh questions over the value of the government's controversial tool for trying to protect the public. Among those being urgently sought are Lamine Adam from London, who, it was alleged during the Crevice terror trial, discussed attacking a nightclub. Part of his control order stipulates his alleged intention to carry out gas bomb attacks against nightclubs. It is also alleged he has spoken about killing UK troops, another detail bolstering a possible Iraqi connection between the incidents.

A security source said that, bearing in mind the allegations against Adam, it is 'possible' he is connected to last week's the failed nightclub bomb. His brother Ibrahim, 20, and Cerie Bullivant, 24, have also escaped their control orders and are now said to be 'people of interest' to the police.

Others being sought are Zeeshan Siddiqui, 26, who, it was alleged also during the Crevice trial, has links to members of a cell jailed for plotting fertiliser bomb attacks in the south-east of England and which had connections to Dhiren Barot. Barot, who was jailed last year, created the 'gas limo' project, using bombs powered by gas canisters, that was approved by senior al-Qaeda figures. Other suspects include Bestun Salim, who vanished from his Manchester flat last summer and is alleged to have links to Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most notorious insurgent leader, who was killed in a US airstrike last year.

Officers will also continue investigating claims on the al Hesbah chat forum, frequently used by al-Qaeda supporters, which had predicted 'London shall be bombed' hours before the discovery of the first car bomb in Haymarket.

Officers eventually hope to follow the 'electronic footprint' of the message's author, Abu Osama al-Hazeen, a regular contributor to the website.

What is already evident is that the double car bomb plot was not the work of a loner. Instead, experts believe those behind the foiled attack belong to one of the loosely interlocking cells which constantly swop information on the latest global terror tactics. The investigation comes ahead of this week's verdict by the jury in the 21 July terror trial in which six men stand accused of taking part in an extremist Muslim plot to carry out a series of suicide bombings.

Yesterday, the biggest global terrorist investigation since 21 July 2005 continued apace. The US, Pakistan and Iraq were among the first countries contacted for assistance. With all MI5 leave cancelled, more than 1,000 officers are involved.

It is understood that good-quality CCTV images of the suspect who ran from the Mercedes in Haymarket at 1.30am on Friday have been obtained. It is already likely that the suspects' getaway route will have been trailed using the hundreds of cameras in central London. Details of the driver, the numberplate and the vehicle will already have been checked, but the likelihood is that the cars were stolen. Sources say it is highly unlikely that the cell members have fled the country.

Whatever the motive for the attacks, the senses of all Londoners will be keener today. As the national terror threat level moves to critical in the wake of the Glasgow attack, the watchword from Whitehall is vigilance. Smith is saying over and over again that the whole nation 'needs to be alert'. A jittery capital fears a new terror campaign.

    'There was a man on fire. It was terrifying', O, 1.7.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2115970,00.html

Tourists face airport chaos

Lengthy queues feared as security measures
are stepped up ahead of peak holiday travel period

Sunday July 1, 2007
The Observer
Jo Revill and Juliette Jowit

Holidaymakers being warned to brace themselves for a summer of travel chaos as security measures become far tighter, creating longer queues in departure lounges and at check-ins.

Following the attempted car bombing at Glasgow airport, thousands of holidaymakers hoping to jet off to a sunnier climate were facing a miserable few days as the closure of Scotland's busiest airport caused travel chaos.

Airports around Britain were also affected last night with much tighter security arrangements. Liverpool's John Lennon airport was closed until further notice, while safety checks were stepped up at Heathrow and Gatwick airports, with passengers facing double scrutiny of their passport details.

Scotland Yard said last night in a statement: 'Security at Heathrow airport has been thoroughly reviewed, in conjunction with key partners, and we have introduced enhanced levels of policing and security. This includes increased patrols by armed officers and the closure of access to the forecourts. '

The same approach was being taken at London City airport.

Many airports, including Newcastle and Edinburgh, were also preventing passengers from being dropped off in front of terminals, meaning that travellers and relatives coming by car or coach faced walks or bus rides.

The concern of travel operators is that during the peak holiday season of late July and August, huge queues are bound to build up as Britons head abroad for the sun. Last August, there were numerous delays and cancellations after the government introduced strict baggage regulations following the foiling of a terrorist attempt to blow up planes.

The rules have been somewhat relaxed since then, but earlier this year BAA, whose UK airports include Glasgow, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, said that delays were likely this summer. The big losers could be the budget airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet, which rely on a quick turnaround of aircraft.

Kieran Daly, editor of online news service Air Transport Intelligence, said it was difficult to work out how much protection should be given to the terminals and approaches to them. 'Airside protects the operational role of the airport, the aircraft and the passengers, who are in the air transport system. But landside, it is difficult to work out how far security should be taken. You would have to work out where the airport begins - with Heathrow, would it be where you come off the M4, or when you go in the tunnel, or on the perimeter road around it?' He added: 'You can imagine the chaos that would ensue if you were stopping vehicles when they got close to the airport.'

However a spokesman for BAA said: 'A number of measures have been taken in consultation with various branches of the security services to make the landside part of airports safer. We are aware of the most vulnerable places.'

Many were left stranded in the Glasgow rain last night as all flights to and from the airport were suspended with around 35,000 passengers expected to be affected. Travellers evacuated from airport were being looked after at nearby hotels as uncertainty over their flight plans remained. Stanley Rae, 62, from Glasgow's Ballieston area, was scheduled to fly to Turkey for a two-week break with 13 members of his family.

He called his tour operator when he heard about the incident and was advised to travel to the airport as planned.

Remaining upbeat, he said: 'Of course I'm disappointed but even if we do have to go tomorrow I'll be happy.'

Glasgow Airport is the busiest of Scotland's international airports, with approximately 8.8 million passengers a year. An average of 265 aircraft fly in and out every day.

    Tourists face airport chaos, O, 1.7.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2115977,00.html

Blair launches stinging attack

on 'absurd' British Islamists

Sunday July 1, 2007
The Observer
Nicholas Watt, political editor

Tony Blair has launched a powerful attack on 'absurd' British Islamists who have nurtured a false 'sense of grievance' that they are being oppressed by Britain and the United States.

In his most outspoken remarks on Islamists, the former Prime Minister warns that Britain is in danger of losing the battle against terrorists unless mainstream society confronts the threat.

Blair's remarks, in which he also attacks some civil liberty campaigners as 'loopy loo', were made in a Channel 4 documentary recorded last Tuesday on the eve of his departure from Downing Street.

'The idea that as a Muslim in this country that you don't have the freedom to express your religion or your views, I mean you've got far more freedom in this country than you do in most Muslim countries,' Blair told Observer columnist Will Hutton, who presents the documentary.

'The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we're not actually fighting it properly. We're not actually standing up to these people and saying, "It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified."'

Blair held out the example of the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan - criticised by Islamists as an example of the heavy-handed imperial West oppressing Muslims - to highlight unfounded claims of grievance. He asked how it is possible to claim that Afghanistan's Muslims are being oppressed when the Taliban 'used to execute teachers for teaching girls in schools'.

Blair added: 'How are [we] oppressing them? You're oppressing them when you support the people who are trying to blow them up.'

Blair, who normally chooses his language carefully when he talks about Islamists, also takes a swipe at critics who accused him of undermining civil liberties. 'When I'm trying to change the law in order to make it easier to deport people who engage in terrorism - the idea that that's an assault on hundreds of years of British civil liberties is completely absurd. Some of what is written on this is loopy-loo in its extremism.'

· The Last Days of Tony Blair will be shown on Channel Four at 8pm tomorrow

    Blair launches stinging attack on 'absurd' British Islamists, O, 1.7.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2115929,00.html

Comment

My plea to fellow Muslims:

you must renounce terror

As the bombers return to Britain, Hassan Butt, who was once a member of radical group Al-Muhajiroun, raising funds for extremists and calling for attacks on British citizens, explains why he was wrong

The Observer
Sunday July 1, 2007


When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

Friday's attempt to cause mass destruction in London with strategically placed car bombs is so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that it is likely to have been carried out by my former peers.

And as with previous terror attacks, people are again articulating the line that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy. For example, yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: 'What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq.'

He then refused to acknowledge the role of Islamist ideology in terrorism and said that the Muslim Brotherhood and those who give a religious mandate to suicide bombings in Palestine were genuinely representative of Islam.

I left the BJN in February 2006, but if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, and I were both part of the BJN - I met him on two occasions - and though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.

How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

This understanding of the global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain. For decades, radicals have been exploiting these tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state for their benefit, typically by starting debate with the question: 'Are you British or Muslim?' But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Islamic institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology. They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex topic of violence within Islam and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace, focus on Islam as personal, and hope that all of this debate will go away.

This has left the territory of ideas open for radicals to claim as their own. I should know because, as a former extremist recruiter, every time mosque authorities banned us from their grounds, it felt like a moral and religious victory.

Outside Britain, there are those who try to reverse this two-step revisionism. A handful of scholars from the Middle East has tried to put radicalism back in the box by saying that the rules of war devised by Islamic jurists were always conceived with the existence of an Islamic state in mind, a state which would supposedly regulate jihad in a responsible Islamic fashion. In other words, individual Muslims don't have the authority to go around declaring global war in the name of Islam.

But there is a more fundamental reasoning that has struck me and a number of other people who have recently left radical Islamic networks as a far more potent argument because it involves stepping out of this dogmatic paradigm and recognising the reality of the world: Muslims don't actually live in the bipolar world of the Middle Ages any more.

The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law.

However, it isn't enough for Muslims to say that because they feel at home in Britain they can simply ignore those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers. By refusing to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day. It may be difficult to swallow but the reason why Abu Qatada - the Islamic scholar whom Palestinian militants recently called to be released in exchange for the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston - has a following is because he is extremely learned and his religious rulings are well argued. His opinions, though I now thoroughly disagree with them, have validity within the broad canon of Islam.

Since leaving the BJN, many Muslims have accused me of being a traitor. If I knew of any impending attack, then I would have no hesitation in going to the police, but I have not gone to the authorities, as some reports have suggested, and become an informer.

I believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. (The Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from this state of denial and realise there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.) However, demystification will not be achieved if the only bridges of engagement that are formed are between the BJN and the security services.

If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence. And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.

    My plea to fellow Muslims: you must renounce terror, O, 1.7.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2115832,00.html

Our democracy

is the best defence against terrorism

Leader
Sunday July 1, 2007
The Observer


The 'long war' against terrorism is growing longer every day. The images of police tape around lamp posts or bomb squad specialists searching vehicles are now horribly familiar.

If, as is currently suspected, those behind the most recent attacks are Islamic militants, anyone who expected a sudden drop in threat following Tony Blair's resignation will be disappointed. They should not be. The war in Iraq, as MI5 and MI6 both say, has enhanced the threat from Islamic terrorism but is not its cause. The roots lie in cultural, political, economic, historical and religious factors that stretch back centuries in the Islamic world's relationship with the West. An additional complicating factor has been the emergence of large, newly politicised Muslim populations in European nations. Modern Islamic militancy is not something that will evaporate simply because of a new Prime Minister or a shift in position on Iraq.

This is why the long view taken by those Britons whose phlegmatic calm so discountenances the foreign media is the right one. For terrorists do not pose, as some melodramatically claim, a threat to our way of life. In fact, they show us its strengths. The periods where there has been no terrorist threat to Britons in the past 150 years have been the exception, not the rule, yet we have weathered pretty much everything that has so far been thrown at us. So, it is worth noting, have many of our closest allies. Spain's far younger and far more fragile democracy withstood the Madrid bombings of 2004, as well as the campaigns of ETA. The US survived the shock of 9/11. Our own nation may have been shocked by 7/7 and 21/7, but it has not been significantly weakened.

Some believe that the solution to terrorism is to resolve the myriad grievances the terrorists broadcast so violently. This is a mistake. Many such grievances are imagined - the West does not want to 'dominate the lands of Islam', for example. Many more are simply not Britain's fault; we are not to blame for the parlous economic state of many Islamic countries. Instead, we should remember that it is our way of life, and the attraction it holds, that remains our best weapon. The truth is that our democratic structures, our economy, our values and the society we have built upon them are much stronger than we often think.

They can easily cope with the unpleasant but necessary measures, such as the controversial and currently flawed control orders, that are essential to fight terrorism. In counterterrorist circles, there is much anxious talk about the resilience of modern terrorist networks. There should be some less anxious talk about the resilience of our societies, too.

    Our democracy is the best defence against terrorism, O, 1.7.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,2115837,00.html

New face of the bomber

Jason Burke analyses eight key issues
already emerging from the attacks

Sunday July 1, 2007
The Observer

1. Islamic militants are almost certainly responsible.

This will become finally clear when the identity of the men arrested at Glasgow airport becomes known. The police are still working on gathering images of the London attacks, but will hope the Scottish strike will lead them to any fugitive bombers

2. The attacks are linked.

They are probably the work of the same loose network. The strike on Glasgow is unlikely to be the result of the pure 'copycat effect' for the simple reason that it takes longer than 36 hours to assemble in secrecy a car, petrol and gas canisters.

3. The bombs are amateurish.

We are a long way from the technologically advanced devices and the painstaking preparation work of 9/11, the 1998 bombings of US embassies in east Africa, or even the 7 July attacks on London. This is good news, in that it means Islamic militants are short on expertise and find running sophisticated operations very difficult, not least due to public vigilance and the work of the security services. But it is bad news in that it means that the threat is coming from the people who are hardest to stop: ordinary citizens angry or disturbed enough to become radicalised. Terrorist organisations can have a highly trained, structured, disciplined body of very competent militants or a diffuse network of less skilled and less disciplined individuals, but not usually both. The former is more effective, the latter more resistant.

4. No suicide bombings.

The fact that the London attacks, at least, did not involve the death of the bomber points to a domestic source. Almost all strikes directly commissioned by the al-Qaeda 'hard core' of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri involve the death of the bombers. This change may be the result of a lack of long-term psychological preparation of the attackers.

5. Plots involve British citizens or immigrants who have spent some time in the UK.

However the cell behind the recent attacks could be heterogeneous: one emerging theme is a new mix of ethnicities and even languages within groups. The internet remains extremely important to the radicalisation process, with British security services desperately trying to track the moment when 'the virtual goes real'. Following recent trends, the bombers are likely to be young (possibly in their late teens) and radicalised very rapidly.

6. Too much can be made of the 'Iraq link'.

Yes, vehicle bombs with gas cans and petrol have been used extensively in Baghdad, but car bombs are hardly an innovation. There were massive vehicle-borne bombs in Pakistan in the Nineties, in Lebanon in the early Eighties - and of course in the UK.

7. Bands of brothers.

Though not yet identified - reports about a 'clean image' of one bomber were not correct - officials say there is a strong chance that anyone involved in last week's events will be linked to other plots. Islamic militant terrorism works through personal associations, which means that everyone eventually has a connection to everyone if you follow enough links.

8. Message to the UK.

The attacks are something that say: what we are engaged in is far bigger than politics. This is about a battle between good and evil. The timescale is long, the cause is far greater than the arrival or departure of a Prime Minister or even a single war, even those in Iraq or Afghanistan. The threat will remain high for the foreseeable future.

    New face of the bomber, O, 1.7.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2115971,00.html

9.30pm

Glasgow attacked

as terror threat spreads

· Police confirm al-Qaeda link to car bombs
· New fears over control order chaos

Saturday June 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Townsend, Jo Revill and Paul Kelbie

Britain is braced tonight for a fresh wave of terrorist attacks after an attempted car bombing of Glasgow airport confirmed the reality of a renewed UK offensive by Islamic extremists.

Just four days into his premiership, Gordon Brown is facing the most concerted threat to Britain since the London attacks of July 2005. Tonight he summoned intelligence chiefs and ministers to a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee in Whitehall to discuss the deteriorating security situation.

Moments before the meeting, police stopped cars entering Edinburgh and Newcastle airports. An hour later, just after 7pm, Blackpool airport was sealed off by armed police amid intelligence that a nationwide terror cell might be planning similar car bomb attacks.

Earlier, there were extraordinary scenes at Scotland's busiest airport after a Jeep Cherokee wreathed in flames crashed into the doors of the main terminal building. Two Asian men who were in the vehicle, one badly burnt, were arrested. One witness described one of them throwing petrol over himself and setting it ablaze while the other was held by holidaymakers before being apprehended by police.

The attack, bearing the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda plot, occurred at 3:11pm today, 36 hours after extremists attempted a double car bomb attack in the heart of London's West End using two Mercedes packed with petrol, nails and 'patio gas' canisters.

Security sources told The Observer that the two attacks in London and Glasgow appeared to be connected, evidence that a new cell using new tactics has emerged in Britain, but one which appears to have slipped completely under the radar of the security services. No intelligence had been intercepted into any of the three attempted car bombings.

Amid concern over further attacks - the classic modus operandi of al-Qaeda is a sudden wave of strikes - police also said that they were stepping up the hunt for five terror suspects who have evaded control orders and are on the run.

In a day of dramatic developments, intelligence sources confirmed the attack on Glasgow airport appeared to be aimed at killing passengers setting off on the first day of the Scottish school holidays. It was only foiled because the Jeep hit protective bollards and became stuck in the terminal doors.

Airports around the world have now been put on heightened alert for a further wave of attacks.

As with the failed London attack, the explosives and gas canisters which appeared to be in the Jeep did not detonate, a stroke of fortune that may again have saved the lives of hundreds of people, many embarking today for their summer holidays.

Witnesses described chaotic scenes as the Jeep sped towards the terminal entrance but was foiled by bollards and became wedged in the doorway.

Robin Patterson, 42, of Rochester, Kent, saw the car burst into flames. 'It was just a small fire at first. Then there was an enormous explosion and it really was a big explosion,' he said. 'The guy next to the car, his skin and clothes just fell off him. He came running away from the car and he was like an absolute lunatic. He was just literally running away from the police.'

Holidaymaker Richard Gray said: 'A green Jeep was in the middle of the doorway burning. There was an Asian guy who was pulled out of the car by two police officers, who he was trying to fight off. They got him on the ground. The car didn't explode. There were a few bangs, which presumably was the petrol.'

Another witness said: 'I heard the sound of a car's wheels spinning and saw smoke coming out. I saw a Jeep Cherokee apparently as if it was trying to get right through the doors into the terminal building. There were flames coming out from underneath, then some men appeared from in among the flames. The police ran over and the people started fighting with the police. I then heard what sounded like an explosion.'

Meanwhile in London, a massive investigation into what could have been Britain's most deadly terror attack widened tonight. Police and intelligence sources told The Observer that they were now investigating the existence of an Islamic terror cell in the capital. One major branch of the inquiry is tracking down a number of terror suspects on the run who have slipped their control orders, a development that raises fresh questions over their effectiveness.

One man being sought is Lamine Adam, 26, who, in evidence heard during the recent Crevice terror trial that saw five jailed for plotting fertiliser bomb attacks in the UK, allegedly boasted of targeting nightclubs.

One of the Mercedes cars involved in the attack was left outside the busy Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, in the centre of the West End. The other Mercedes was found in a nearby street.

Other men urgently wanted by police are his brother Ibrahim, 20, and Cerie Bullivant, 24, who have also evaded measures meant to keep them under house arrest.

The government's independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, Lord Carlile, has said that there is 'solid evidence' that the trio had wanted to join insurgents abroad and attack British troops serving in Iraq. Security sources said it remains 'possible' that the men were involved in the attempted to bring carnage to London. They have also conceded that others who may be involved may already be known to them as terror suspects.

The Prime Minister chaired a meeting of the government's emergency Cobra committee this evening to consider the official response to the failed car bombings, the third such meeting in successive days.

After being briefed on the progress of the police investigation, the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, released a statement urging greater vigilance. It read: 'The police are clear that the most important contribution that the public can make is to carry on reporting anything suspicious and to remain vigilant. I must stress we must not let the threat of terror stop us getting on with our lives.'

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, reiterated that the capital faced 'a very real threat' and called on Londoners to be 'vigilant'.

Reports today from the US suggested that police have obtained a 'crystal clear' CCTV image of a suspect staggering away from a car after parking it outside Tiger Tiger have been denied by police.

Forensic experts continued to comb the cars and the area where they were parked for clues to the bombers along with the bombs themselves and detonation devices. However, police were warning not to expect immediate results. 'This is an extremely complex process,' said one.

Elsewhere, a jittery capital attempted to return to normality today. Hundreds of extra police were drafted on to the streets to step up security and to reassure the public.

The Gay Pride Festival, which saw hundreds of thousands of people making their way from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square, was accompanied by 350 officers, while extra police were drafted in for the Wimbledon tennis championships and the Diana concert at Wembley. Police said that the security plan for these events had already been tightened some months ago.

Among other terror suspects police want to track down are former tube worker and 26-year-old Londoner Zeeshan Siddiqui. Court evidence has heard how he trained with a London suicide bomber in Pakistan.

Another individual police desperately want to track down, even if only to eliminate him from their investigation, is Bestun Salim, who disappeared from his Manchester home last year, and is alleged to have links to Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to the terrorist network of the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's notorious insurgent leader who was killed last year.

    Glasgow attacked as terror threat spreads, G, 30.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115693,00.html

Blazing 4x4

rammed into airport terminal

Published: 30 June 2007
PA
The Independent

A blazing vehicle was driven into the main Glasgow airport terminal today. Two people were arrested and flights halted as all roads around the airport were shut.

Witnesses said two men crashed it into the doors of the main terminal building.

A man with his clothes on fire got out of the vehicle and was restrained by passengers while others put out the flames with a fire extinguisher.

The airport was closed and passengers were cleared from the terminal building amid fears that this was a terrorist attack.

The incident came as police in London continued to search for terrorists who planted two car bombs which failed to detonate in the heart of the capital yesterday.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to chair a meeting of the Government's Cobra emergency contingencies committee this evening to discuss the incident, said Downing Street

As she arrived for what will be her third Cobra meeting in just three days as Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith described the incident at Glasgow Airport as "serious".

She added: "The Prime Minister is about to chair a Cobra meeting where we will be updated on developments on the ground and will be able to decide what further steps we need to take to protect the public."

A spokesman for BAA, the operators of Glasgow Airport, said: "At 15.11 today a vehicle drove into a front door at the check-in area of Glasgow Airport's terminal building.

"The vehicle caught fire on impact with the building and is currently outside the terminal building. A police investigation is under way and emergency crews are at the scene."

He said the airport had been closed as a result of the incident and a motorway cordon had been set up by the police.

The spokesman added: "Following the incident, the terminal was evacuated in line with our emergency procedures and those people still on campus are sheltering in buildings near the airport."

Passengers are being advised not to travel until further notice, as all flights are suspended.

Strathclyde Police later confirmed that the vehicle was driven into the front of terminal one - the main terminal building at the airport.

Police and fire crews rushed to the scene, with two people being arrested.

Roads around the airport were shut off and flights in and out of Glasgow were also suspended until further notice.

A police spokeswoman said: "Strathclyde Police would like to reassure the public that it is unknown at present if this is connected with the incidents in London as inquiries are at an early stage.

"However, we would ask the public to remain vigilant and to report any suspicious activity to the police."

Glasgow Airport is the busiest of Scotland's international airports.

Passenger numbers there have grown by 60% over the last decade, with approximately 8.8 million passengers a year travelling through it.

An average of 265 aircraft fly in and out of there every day, amounting to 96,939 flights every year.

More than 40 airlines fly from Glasgow to around 90 destination.

BBC News executive Helen Boaden who was at Glasgow airport said she had spoken to a man who claimed to have witnessed what happened.

"What he says he saw is a Cherokee jeep drive into the glass frontage of the airport," she told BBC News 24.

"A man got out of it on fire - he said there were actually two Asian-looking men but this guy was the one that was on fire.

"Some holidaymaker tried to restrain him, then the police came over and wrestled him to the ground - the fire was burning through his clothes - and finally put him out with a fire extinguisher."

The area was subsequently evacuated, she said.

A spokesman for the airport's operators, the British Airports Authority, said emergency services were at the scene.

He said: "A car is on fire at the entrance to the terminal and there is considerable smoke damage to the terminal.

"The terminal has been evacuated as a result of this and all flights have now been suspended."

He continued: "This is the start of the busy summer holiday period, although Saturdays are less busy than week days.

"But this will cause disruption and our advice to passengers is to check with their airline to establish if their flight will be operating."

Another eyewitness, taxi driver Ian Crosby, said he was in no doubt that it was a terrorist attack.

"It looks to me like these people were intent on doing some serious damage," he told the BBC.

He saw a small explosion which looked like it was coming from the back of the vehicle.

"There was smoke coming from inside of the back seats," he said.

"Immediately I realised this was a terrorist attack."

"Somebody had planned this. This was no accident."

He praised the bravery of those who tried to restrain the man, "putting their lives at risk".

Another eyewitness, Margaret Hughes, told the BBC that people were screaming and running towards the exit shortly after the explosion.

"As soon as I left the building there was black smoke gushing out where the car had obviously been driven into the airport," she said.

She said the man who had been on fire appeared very calm as he was led away by police.

"He seemed fairly composed, you could say almost in a state of shock," she said.

"He was quite a large man ... and very heavy set. Very dark hair and dark colouring."

Scott Leeson was waiting to pick up a colleague when he witnessed the Jeep smash in to the airport building.

He said: "The car came speeding past at about 30mph. It was approaching the building quickly.

"Then the driver swerved the car around so he could ram straight in to the door. He must have been trying to smash straight through.

"Luckily he did not get the car too far in. He just managed to get the nose of the Jeep inside.

"I spoke to an airport official who seemed to think it was not an accident. He was very angry. He said the men in the car got out and started throwing petrol about - that must be how it caught fire.

"Luckily my colleague and his family were delayed or they could have been coming out of that door at exactly that time."

Eye witness James Edgar said an ordinary car fire burns itself out quickly, " but this went on and on".

He told Sky News: "There were a few pops, obviously the fuel tanks would have gone, but it was as if there was maybe more accelerant in the vehicle."

He thought some of the building had caught fire as well, so that may have added to the effect.

Referred to a picture of the blazing jeep, he said: "He's trying to get through the main door frame, but the bollards have stopped him from going through. If he'd got through, he'd have killed hundreds, obviously."

    Blazing 4x4 rammed into airport terminal, I, 30.6.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2723750.ece

Terrorists strike Glasgow airport

with car 'firebomb'

June 30, 2007
From Times Online
By David Leppard for The Sunday Times, Times Online and agencies

Glasgow airport was closed and passengers evacuated from the terminal building after a suspected car bombing attempt.

Witnesses said two Asian-looking men crashed a four-wheel drive vehicle into the doors of the airport’s main terminal building. One of the men got out of the Jeep Cherokee with his clothes on fire. He was restrained by passengers while others put out the flames with a fire extinguisher. The two men were later arrested.

There were unconfirmed reports that one of the men was seen unloading a gas cylinder from the vehicle. One witness said bottles of petrol had been shaken inside the vehicle in a bid to set it alight. “It looked like Molotov cocktails,” he said.

One eyewitness at yesterday’s attack in Glasgow, Jackie Kennedy, 46, a beautician from the city, described how she watched one of the occupants of the car douse himself in petrol and set himself alight.

“He had a big smirk on his face. He lifted up what appeared to be a five-litre drum, which I think had petrol in it, and set himself on fire,” she said. “His clothes were melting in front of my very eyes.

“The police tried to pounce on him but he fought back and was struggling with them. It was only when a member of the public punched him in the face that the police managed to restrain him. The police were trying to spray CS gas in his face but it was not working. I can’t believe what I have just seen. I have no doubt this was a terrorist attack.”

One eyewitness said : "Some holidaymaker tried to restrain him, then the police came over and wrestled him to the ground - the fire was burning through his clothes - and finally put him out with a fire extinguisher."

Another said one of the men had tried to open the boot of the vehicle but was not successful.

"Police tried to restrain him but the guy was quite strong and he started fighting off the police," he said.

Eyewitness Fiona Tracey, who had been picking up her daughter from the airport, said she believed people were injured in the incident.

"There were people injured, because I've seen them lying on the road," she said. "I was standing next to departures, I heard a great big massive bang, and then all the folk from departures were running through arrivals."

A spokesman for the airport's operators, the British Airports Authority, said emergency services were at the scene.

"A car is on fire at the entrance to the terminal and there is considerable smoke damage to the terminal. The terminal has been evacuated as a result of this and all flights have now been suspended," the spokesman said.

Glasgow Airport is the busiest of Scotland's international airports with approximately 8.8 million passengers a year travelling through it.

"This is the start of the busy summer holiday period, although Saturdays are less busy than week days. But this will cause disruption and our advice to passengers is to check with their airline to establish if their flight will be operating."

Two people have allegedly been arrested by police.

Downing Street said that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was "being kept aware" of the situation in Glasgow and the Home Office said it was monitoring events, which were being handled by Strathclyde Police. Brown is to chair a meeting of the Government's Cobra emergency contingencies committee this evening to discuss the incident.

A Home Office spokesman said that the official security alert level remains at "severe", as it has been for some time.

Labour's shadow justice minister in Scotland, Margaret Curran, said: "This is obviously a very serious incident that alerts us all to the threat to our safety and security.

"We are relieved that as yet there seem to be no serious injuries. But our thoughts are with those who have witnessed this terrible event. We obviously condemn those who risk the safety of others."

The Queen is in Scotland today for the inauguration of Scotland's third Parliament, the first to be under Nationalist minority control.

    Terrorists strike Glasgow airport with car 'firebomb', Ts, 30.6.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2009765.ece

7.45pm

Glasgow attacked in airport terror strike

· Two held after car rams terminal building
· Passengers jump on burning man

Saturday June 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Amelia Hill


Scotland is reeling from its first al-Qaida-inspired attack, after a car bomb was rammed into Glasgow Airport.

Security sources believe that the attack, which happened at 3.15pm today, is linked to the two attempts to devastate London's West End 36 hours earlier, also using vehicles packed with petrol.

Gordon Brown tonight convened a meeting of the government's emergency Cobra committee to discuss the latest incident and be given the first intelligence reports. Airports around the world were put on alert for a further wave of potential terrorist attacks.

In Glasgow a burning green Jeep Cherokee was driven at speed towards the front of the terminal.

Robin Patterson, 42, of Rochester, Kent, described the moment he saw the car burst into flames at the airport.

'It was just a small fire at first. Then there was an enormous explosion and it really was a big explosion,' he said. 'The guy next to the car, his skin and clothes just fell off him. He came running away from the car and he was like an absolute lunatic. He was just literally running away from the police.'

Travellers described how they saw two Asian men, one of whom was on fire, coming out of the car. One of them was seen pouring petrol around the car and on himself before people at the airport jumped on him and he was led away. Strathclyde Police confirmed that they had arrested two men, but gave no further details.

Several witnesses gave dramatic accounts of the apparent attempt to storm the departure lounge and harm holidaymakers. Richard Gray said: 'A green Jeep was in the middle of the doorway burning. There was an Asian guy who was pulled out of the car by two police officers, who he was trying to fight off. They got him on the ground. The car didn't explode. There were a few pops and bangs, which presumably was the petrol.'

Louise Robertson, 49, from Helensburgh, was checking in for her flight to Mallorca with her husband and son.

She said: 'We were in check-in and were about to go up to the desk when we heard people shouting that there was smoke. I knew instinctively that something wasn't right and we just ran to the nearest exit as fast as we could.

'When we got out I looked back and I could see the Jeep was stuck at the door and it was on fire.

'I then saw a man who was partly on fire running from the car and he was being chased by police who eventually caught him and wrestled him to the ground.

'I have heard that the police are concerned there may be [explosive] devices in the car park.'

One unnamed witness told the BBC: 'I heard the sound of a car's wheels spinning and saw smoke coming out. I saw a Jeep Cherokee apparently as if it was trying to get right through the doors into the terminal building. There were flames coming out from underneath, then some men appeared from in among the flames. The police ran over and the people started fighting with the police. I then heard what sounded like an explosion.'

Two men, one of whom was said to be badly burned, were reportedly seen being led away in handcuffs.

The airport was evacuated and all flights suspended following the incident. Roads around the airport were closed.

A spokesman for the British Airports Authority said that the emergency services were at the scene. He added: 'Our advice to passengers is to check with their airline to establish if their flight will be operating.'

The Labour MP for Glasgow Central, Mohammad Sarwar, said: 'It must be very horrifying and shocking for the people who were at the scene.

'This is a matter of serious concern to the people of Glasgow and of Scotland.

'My advice would be that we should all remain calm.

'Obviously the police investigation is at an early stage and we should not speculate and jump to conclusions until all the facts are known to us.'

If the incident is confirmed to be a full terrorist attack linked to Islamic groups, it will be the first such incident on Scottish soil.

A Home Office spokesman said the official security alert level remains at 'severe', as it has been for some time.

    Glasgow attacked in airport terror strike, G, 30.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115693,00.html

Flaming SUV Rams U.K. Airport;

2 Arrests

June 30, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:07 p.m. ET
The New York Times

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) -- A Jeep Cherokee trailing a cascade of flames rammed into Glasgow airport on Saturday, shattering glass doors just yards from passengers lined up at the check-in counters. Police said they believed the attack was linked to two car bombs found in London the day before.

Britain raised its terror alert to ''critical'' -- the highest possible level -- and the Bush administration announced plans to increase security at airports and on mass transit.

One of the men in the car was in critical condition at a hospital with severe burns, while the other was in police custody, said Scottish Police Chief Constable Willie Rae. He said a ''suspect device'' was found on the suspect at the hospital and it was taken to a safe location where it was being investigated.

Rae would not comment further on the device or say whether it could have been a planned suicide attack.

''I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow airport is linked to the events in London yesterday,'' Rae said. ''There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident.''

Police foiled the plot Friday after two cars were found packed with explosives -- one outside a nightclub near Piccadilly Circus and another parked nearby.

The new terror threat presents Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a Scot who took office on Wednesday, with an enormous challenge and comes at a time of already heightened vigilance one week before the anniversary of the July 7 London transit attacks, which killed 52 people.

''I know that the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong,'' Brown said Saturday in a televised statement.

The green Jeep barreled toward Glasgow's main airport terminal shortly after 3 p.m., hitting security barriers before crashing into the glass doors, witnesses said.

Police subdued the driver and a passenger, both described by witnesses as South Asian -- a term used to refer to people from Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries in the region -- arresting them and taking one to the hospital. Witnesses said one of the men was engulfed in flames and spoke ''gibberish'' as an official used a fire extinguisher to douse the fire.

The previous round of terrorist activity in Britain, in July 2005, was largely carried out by local Muslims, raising ethnic tensions in Britain.

''The car came speeding past,'' said Scott Leeson, a witness. ''Then the driver swerved the car around so he could ram straight in to the door. He must have been trying to smash straight through.''

Passengers fled running and screaming from the busy terminal, Margaret Hughes told the British Broadcasting Corp. ''There was black smoke gushing out where the car had obviously been driven into the airport,'' she said.

The airport was evacuated and all flights suspended. Flames and black smoke rose from the Jeep outside the main entrance. It did not appear there were any injuries aside from the suspect who had been set afire.

The apparent attack left passengers shaken and stranded on the first day of summer vacation for Glasgow schools. All flights from the airport were suspended. At the time of the crash, the airport was bustling with families heading out on vacation.

Meanwhile in London, police were gathering evidence from closed circuit television footage, as forensics experts searched for clues into the foiled bombings. The two Mercedes cars had been loaded with gasoline, gas canisters and nails in one of the capital's busiest areas on a night when Londoners like to go out and party. Security officials and police denied an ABC News report that they had a ''crystal clear'' picture of one suspect from CCTV footage.

The vehicles were found abandoned in the early hours of Friday in what police believe was an attempt to kill scores or even hundreds of people. Detectives said they were keeping an open mind about the bombers' identities, but terrorism experts said the signs pointed to a cell linked to or inspired by al-Qaida.

One car was abandoned outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub on Haymarket in the heart of London's entertainment district. The other had been towed after being parked illegally on nearby Cockspur Street and was discovered in an impound lot about a mile away in Park Lane, near Hyde Park.

One former top British security official said she had no doubt the London and Glasgow incidents were connected.

''One has to conclude ... these are linked,'' Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former head of Britain's joint intelligence committee, told Sky News television. ''This is a very young government, and we may yet see further attacks. ... We are seeing a pattern of attack in the early days of a new government.''

Brown came to office pledging to win back the support of voters disenchanted over the Iraq war. But he backed Tony Blair's decision to send troops to Iraq in 2003 and has shown support for greater anti-terror measures that have angered Britain's some 1.8 million Muslims.

A British government security official said there had been no direct intelligence linking the incident to Friday's thwarted plot in London but that police and MI5 ''are keeping an open mind,'' the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Police and MI5 would be examining any potential links between the three incidents in London and Scotland, as they all involved vehicles, the official said. He said there had been no intelligence warning of a potential plan to attack Scotland.

Police did not say whether the SUV that struck the airport was carrying explosives, but one witness reported seeing a gas canister in the vehicle.

President Bush was being kept informed of the situation, the White House said. ''We're in contact with British authorities on the matter,'' said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, in Washington.

Lynsey McBean, who was at the terminal, said one of the men took out a plastic gasoline canister and poured a liquid under the car. ''He then set light to it,'' said McBean, 26, from Erskine, Scotland. She said the Jeep struck the front door of the airport but got jammed.

''They were obviously trying to get it further inside the airport as the wheels were spinning and smoke was coming from them,'' she said.

AP photographs from the scene showed the car hit the building at an angle and was poking into the terminal. The Jeep struck the building directly in front of check-in counters, where dozens of passengers were lined up, police said.

Leeson said bollards -- security posts outside the entrance -- stopped the driver from barreling into the bustling terminal at Glasgow's airport. ''If he'd got through, he'd have killed hundreds, obviously,'' he said.

The incident carried reminders of a foiled plot in December 1999 to attack Los Angeles International Airport, when customs agents stopped an Algerian-born man in a car packed with 124 of explosives. He was jailed for 22 years and prosecutors said he was intent on bombing the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium.

------

On the Net:

www.glasgowairport.com

    Flaming SUV Rams U.K. Airport; 2 Arrests, NYT, 30.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Airport-Crash.html

Car bombs come to London

· 'Iraqi-style' device defused outside club
· Second explosive found nearby
· Massive hunt for culprits

Saturday June 30, 2007
Guardian
Vikram Dodd Richard Norton-Taylor

Police were last night hunting a suspected al-Qaida-inspired terrorist cell after the discovery of two "Iraqi style" car bombs, which UK officials said were designed to cause mass murder. One was outside a London nightclub, and a second nearby.

Only luck and probable faults in the bombs' construction meant that the first device, inside a metallic green Mercedes, could be disarmed, while the second, in a blue Mercedes 280E, failed to explode. Police say both were capable of causing severe casualties and were intended to have been detonated remotely, most likely by a mobile phone.

Counter-terrorism officials said the first device - made up of 60 litres of petrol, several propane gas cylinders, nails and a detonation mechanism - was similar to those used by al-Qaida in Iraq.

The second car, containing similar lethal materials, was given a parking ticket at 2.30am before being towed to a car park in Park Lane, central London.

Scotland Yard said the attempted attacks were linked. Counter-terrorism officials were last night fearful of further attacks, and were candid about the limits of how much they could know about the scale of the threat.

Opinions among senior figures who talked to the Guardian ranged from hope that the attack was limited to the two car bombs, to a real fear that more attempts could be on the way. One was clear: "We are very worried. This was a deadly serious attempt." Another said: "We can only guess at the intent and scale [of the terrorists]. We are having to guess."

MI5 cancelled leave for its frontline staff and security was stepped up at "iconic targets", with uniformed police patrols also increased. Security plans for weekend events from Wimbledon to a Gay Pride march in London were under review.

The discovery of the devices was a first test for Gordon Brown's government, particularly the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, who was only appointed on Thursday.

The hunt for the terrorists was active on several fronts last night. Forensic experts were combing both cars for clues to where the cylinders and petrol had been bought. CCTV from the area where they were found - near Piccadilly Circus - was being examined. The first car was left outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub on Haymarket. The second was parked round the corner in Cockspur Street near Trafalgar Square, and was towed to the car pound at about 3.30am.

Police sources say investigations on the first car bomb led detectives to realise at 1pm yesterday that there was a strong link between the two vehicles. Late last night Scotland Yard sources said that the two cars had been loaded with explosive material designed to attack central London, between 1am and 2am as clubs emptied and revellers thronged the street.

Britain's threat level remained at "severe general". A meeting of the government's emergency committee Cobra was held and Mr Brown was being kept in close touch with developments.

The security services and police have been trying to increase the intelligence they have about extremists, but yesterday's attempts were "off the radar".

"There is no intelligence whatsoever that we were going to be attacked in this way," said the national counter-terrorism coordinator, deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke. He praised the courage of the bomb squad officers who made the first device safe, adding: "It is obvious that if the device had detonated, there could have been significant injury or loss of life. We are doing absolutely everything we can in our power to keep the public safe. The threat from terrorism is real. It is here and enduring. Life must go on but we must all stay alert to the threat as we go on with our lives."

At a second press conference Mr Clarke said both cars had gas cylinders, petrol and nails and added: "The vehicles are clearly linked."

The attempted bombings bore strong similarities to two al-Qaida plots that have been stopped by police and British security services. The type of target, a nightclub, was similar to those chosen by five men jailed in April for an al-Qaida directed plot. One of their targets was London's Ministry of Sound nightclub.

The tactic of packing cars with gas cylinders was similar to that considered by Dhiren Barot, who was convicted last November of a mass murder plot.

Senior police and Whitehall sources believed the attempted plan to inflict mass murder on the capital was the work of al-Qaida or those inspired by its ideology.

"You only have to read past cases of those convicted for terrorism to realise they have been plotting to blow up nightclubs and putting gas cylinder bombs in cars," said a source.

The first device was discovered by chance just after 1am yesterday. An ambulance crew called to Tiger Tiger saw what they thought was smoke coming from the car. In fact it may well have been vapour from the gas cylinders. One Whitehall counter-terrorism official said: "It's as close as you would want to come. It's one that got through. It was a live viable device, and about to go."

    Car bombs come to London, G, 30.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115451,00.html

A wisp of smoke

- and lethal device was spotted

· Bombs primed to explode as night clubbers headed home
· Mayor praises emergency crew for averting catastrophe

Saturday June 30, 2007
Guardian
Duncan Campbell and Sandra Laville

It was a busy night at Tiger Tiger, the Piccadilly bar and nightclub just refurbished in the "funky era" style of the 70s complete with disco balls and lava lamps. Thursday night - "ladies' night" - is one of the most popular for the clientele of Londoners and tourists in their 20s and 30s happy to pay a £5 cover charge and order jugs of Sex on the Beach and Mojito cocktails as they listen to music and dance.

In the early hours of yesterday, one guest suffered a minor head injury after a fall. An ambulance was called shortly after 1.25am to the club in Haymarket, just round the corner from Piccadilly Circus. Tiger Tiger, which can hold up to 1,700 people, was still crowded and there were hundreds of people on nearby streets heading home from other bars and clubs.

As they tended their patient, the crew from the London Ambulance Service noticed a grey-green Mercedes saloon with what appeared to be smoke inside.

What they saw was probably vapour from petrol which, along with nails and gas canisters, made up the device. The crew told its control room of their suspicions and control contacted the police. Bomb disposal experts, police vans and more ambulances were dispatched.

Rajeshree Patel, who was in the nightclub when it was evacuated, said the car "was parked at an angle by the front door of Tiger Tiger with all four doors open and the headlights on".

Asked what damage the bomb would have caused if it had detonated, she said: "I think there would have been a lot of fatalities. There were approximately 500 people inside at the time."

One report suggested a police officer may have disabled the device by reaching into the car to remove a mobile phone, which would have been used to detonate it remotely.

The area was cordoned off and remained closed to the public for 10 hours as teams of officers arrived, conscious that attacks on London have previously been multiple and there could well be other bombs.

Not long after police bomb disposal officers arrived to assess the first vehicle, a Westminster parking attendent ticketed an illegally parked blue Mercedes 280E, only a few hundred metres away on Cockspur street. The car was given a ticket at 2.30am, and an hour later a parking enforcement team arrived to tow it away to a car park on Park Lane.

As dawn broke outside Tiger Tiger, officers were examing the car and the scene in detail before the vehicle was removed by lorry for further investigation at forensic labs. Piccadilly Circus underground station was closed and traffic halted through all the adjoining streets.

Staff beginning an 8am shift at the car park on Park Lane were told by colleagues that the Mercedes had been left outside the office because it smelt strange.

Ispan Chowdhury, 39, said: "I started my shift at 8am and my colleague who finished at 8am told me about it. He said there was something smelling inside the car. He said it smelt like gas. He said not to take it into the car park and to leave it outside the office."

Later the car park duty manager Billy McCoid received a phone call from Westminster council, warning workers not to go near the car that they had earlier towed."Obviously, they've checked the CCTV from the West End and seen something suspicious. It's possible they saw someone leave the car there," he said. "A vanload of police arrived ... I think they sent as many as they could. They were wearing uniform, but I didn't see any guns. We evacuated the place as quickly as possible."

The new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, was reminded that one of her main responsibilities is national security. Within hours of wakening, she was chairing her first meeting of Cobra, the emergency response committee, which is activated in the face of a major threat. When she emerged, she said: "We are currently facing the most severe and sustained threat to our security from international terrorism. This latest incident reinforces the need for the public to remain vigilant and alert to the threat we face at all times ... While we can minimise the risks we can never completely eliminate them."

For Gordon Brown, it was an early reminder of the government's priorities. "The first duty of the government is the security of the people and as the police and security services have said on so many occasions, we face a serious and continuous threat to our country," he said.

The detectives' attention turned to the CCTV cameras. Westminster council has 160 in the area. Many clubs and businesses in Piccadilly also have their own cameras and the police were starting the business of examining the hours of footage.

Extra police patrols fanned out across central London looking for suspicious vehicles and reassuring the public. Tennis fans at Wimbledon found that security was at a high level and cars were being individually searched.

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, praised the emergency services. "We would all want to thank the explosives officers for their bravery in dismantling this device, which will also yield invaluable clues. The ambulance crew who originally alerted the police to this matter showed great vigilance and they deserve the praise of everyone who lives and works in London."

Scotland Yard has developed clear procedures for dealing with such incidents, but anti-terror police acknow-ledged that these events had taken them by surprise. Over the past two years anti-terrorism officers have been on a steep learning curve as they try to tackle and understand current threats to Britain. Inside Scotland Yard, detectives know that there are, potentially, hundreds of Islamist terror suspects at large, some of whom pose no immediate threat.

Anti-terrorist officers are working on intelligence which suggests there are 250 high-risk terror suspects in the UK and 700 medium-risk. But individuals can swiftly change status and senior officers must make crucial decisions about which groups or individuals to target.

The July 7 2005 attacks targeted the London transport system with rucksack bombs carried by people intent on suicide. No one doubts, though, that terrorists constantly change their tactics and targets. Senior officers keep an eye on the streets of Baghdad, where car bombs are daily events with horrific results, and have been dreading the moment those tactics woud be used in the UK.

Recently the Yard admitted it was carrying out anti-terrorist spot checks on lorries entering London. There are concerns that symbolic sites will be targeted and some worries were raised privately last week during a security review at Wimbledon, when it was noted there were no vehicle crash barriers in the streets outside.

The conspirators in the so-called Crevice fertiliser bomb plot were heard talking about targets including nightclubs, and the Bluewater shopping centre in 2004, several months before the July 7 attacks.

    A wisp of smoke - and lethal device was spotted, G, 30.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115273,00.html

Favoured tool of Iraqi insurgents,

Kashmir separatists - and al-Qaida

Saturday June 30, 2007
Guardian
Ian Cobain

Gas cylinder bombs are being used with increasing frequency by insurgents in Iraq. They have also been used in recent years by guerillas in Indian-ruled Kashmir and separatists in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam. Al-Qaida also used a gas cylinder bomb in an attack on western oil workers in Algeria in January.

Though the police said yesterday it was too early to be completely sure who was to blame, the attempted bomb attack in London's West End bore striking similarities with two planned al-Qaida attacks on the capital thwarted by police and the security service three years ago.

One gang which was assembling a fertiliser bomb was overheard in bugged conversations early in 2004 considering whether to target the Ministry of Sound nightclub, less than two miles from the scene of yesterday's attempted attack. A gang member was heard to say: "No one can even turn around and say 'oh they were innocent' those slags dancing around." Four months later a separate gang who had planned to attack targets in London using gas cylinder bombs almost identical in design to that discovered early yesterday were rounded up in raids across the country and jailed for terms up to 30 years. Members of both gangs had trained at al-Qaida camps in Pakistan.

Al-Qaida's ambitions for a gas cylinder bomb attack in London were first uncovered when Pakistani police seized a Toshiba laptop following an armed raid on a terrorist safehouse in July 2004.

On the machine's hard drive they discovered a file called eminem2, within which was a 39-page document titled Rough Presentation for the Gas Limos Project. This laid out a plan to pack a number of stretch limousines with explosives and gas cylinders, leave them in car parks at major buildings, and then detonate them. The document was signed EaB.

MI5 discovered that these were the initials of Esa al-Britani, an alibi used by Dhiren Barot, an Indian-born convert to Islam who lived in Kingsbury, north-west London. Barot had been a child when his father, a banker, moved his family to the UK. Before travelling to Kashmir in the mid-90s, and undergoing terrorism training, he had worked as a clerk at an airline office in Piccadilly.

Barot, 36, admitted writing the document after his arrest and also admitted planning attacks on the London underground and upon financial institutions in the New York area. He was jailed for life last November with the recommendation that he serve at least 40 years, reduced to 30 on appeal. The document drew on lessons learned from al-Qaida including the need to improvise and to feel no qualms about mass casualties. Barot had no plans to die himself and said he would arrange for his gang to escape. Seven other men arrested with him were jailed earlier this month for terms of 15 to 26 years.

Privately, senior police say that one of their main fears is the possibility of a car or truck bomb attack on an "iconic target", probably in London.

Members of the fertiliser bomb gang were also overheard considering an attack on the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent. Police moved in when they realised that some members were buying one-way airline tickets to Pakistan. Five men were jailed for life last April after a 14-month trial. Among them was Jawad Akbar, 23, who called his would-be victims as "slags". He was jailed for life with the recommendation that he serve a minimum of 17½ years.

    Favoured tool of Iraqi insurgents, Kashmir separatists - and al-Qaida, G, 30.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115286,00.html

Basra comes to London town

Haymarket car bomb ... the Mercedes parked outside Tiger Tiger club, laden with 60 litres of petrol, could have caused untold carnage

JUNE 30, 2007
The Sun
By JOHN KAY
Chief Reporter
and NEIL SYSON

THE horrific spectre of Iraq-style car bombs has arrived in London, security experts warned last night.

They said the nightmarish idea of packing a Mercedes with gas cylinders, petrol and nails could have come straight from the streets of Baghdad or Basra.

Andy Oppenheimer — editor of the mag Nuclear, Biological, Chemical International — said it had been designed to create as “big and nasty a bang as possible”. He added:

This is straight from the Iraqi insurgents’ handbook. It was not the most complicated device, but it does represent a new and very frightening development.

If it was smoke that was seen filling the car, it makes it an even more narrow escape.

The smoke could have meant a faulty detonator, an electrical circuit that had shorted or maybe only the detonator exploded.

It could also mean the main charge was starting to detonate — it does not bear thinking about.

The propane and the petrol were in the car to accelerate the incendiary properties, so it goes up like a fireball.

“When people are killed by bombs like this, they are literally blown to bits. The consequences, if this device had exploded, would perhaps have been hundreds of deaths, injuries and everlasting mental scars.

Even during the days of IRA bombs, we never had to cope with this sort of thing.

Chris Dobson, a leading expert on terror and security, said: “Basra came to London yesterday.

“The ingredients, which can all be bought individually without rousing suspicion, form a lethal bomb when they are combined and could have caused hundreds of casualties.

“It has emerged from recent trials that British-born terrorists have been taught how to make this type of bomb at al-Qaeda training camps.

“And it is likely that the Haymarket bomb was the work of a group similar to that responsible for the 7/7 and 21/7 London bombings two years ago, with an expert bombmaker and several others used to buy the different pieces of equipment and ingredients necessary to make the bomb.

“What is not clear yet is whether this was a suicide bombing that went wrong or whether it was in transit.

“Did the driver lose his nerve at the last moment? Or did the detonating mechanism go wrong?

“Whatever happened, the car and its contents should prove of enormous value to the security services.

“Not only will the car itself be traceable but the way in which the bomb was put together will provide the explosives experts with the bombmaker's ‘signature’.

“Every bomber has his own way of soldering, of wiring and mixing explosives. He virtually signs his work.

“There may also be fingerprints. The bombers, confident that the car would be destroyed in the explosion may not have been scrupulous in wiping off their prints. And, probably the most important of all, there should be some DNA recoverable.

“The car is a treasure chest for the anti-terrorist officers.

“Another weapon for the police is the sheer number of CCTV cameras that must have photographed both the car and its driver.” He went on:

The security services have been aware for some time that al-Qaeda have been plotting a ‘spectacular’ in Britain and that it has been training British Islamic volunteers who have gone to Iraq.

Al-Qaeda’s line has been, ‘Rather than die fighting against the British army in Iraq you should go back to Britain and strike a devastating blow in the heart of the infidels’. The danger is out there. It is with us all the time.

Consultant chemical engineer Keith Plumb confirmed the set-up within the car bore the hallmarks of Iraqi insurgents.

Further evidence of a possible link to Islamic extremists came with a warning London was about to be attacked just hours BEFORE the car bomb was found.

A poster on a terrorist website boasted: “Today I say Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed.”

See head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command discussing the incident

The rambling message on the al Hesbah site suggested the attack could have been sparked by Britain’s recent awarding of a knighthood to Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.

The chilling bomb plot appears to echo two failed attempts at mass slaughter by al-Qaeda terrorists in London.

Just two months ago a gang of five Muslims were jailed for life for planning attacks on targets including the Ministry of Sound nightspot. And last November crazed Dhiren Barot got life for his chilling “gas limo project”, foiled in 2004.

Barot was found with plans to explode limousines packed with gas canisters at top hotels and mainline railway stations.

Barot, 34, also schemed to blow-up a Tube train beneath the Thames as well as major New York landmarks.

Last night New York’s mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city was strengthening its already tight security. He told listeners to his weekly radio show: “We’re going to ramp up a little bit, but nothing dramatic.”

The US government urged Americans to be vigilant but officials said they had no indications of a terrorist attack ahead of next week’s Fourth of July holiday.

    Basra comes to London town, S, 2.7.2007, http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007300172,00.html

Bomber tried to kill 100s of girls

JUNE 30, 2007
The Sun
By MIKE SULLIVAN and ANTONELLA LAZZERI

HUNDREDS of women were feared to have been the target of yesterday’s first chilling car bomb — left outside a top London nightclub on a packed LADIES’ NIGHT.

Cops are convinced the huge device — stuffed with nails — was meant to explode at 2am just when revellers were leaving.

They would have been incinerated in a gigantic fireball.

The SECOND bomb would have gone off soon afterwards — slaughtering fleeing crowds and hampering emergency crews.

As al-Qaeda sympathisers were seen as the No1 suspects behind the massacre plot, a security source said: “They would have known the club would be packed with women.

“Western women are viewed as immoral — and legitimate targets. They do not cover themselves up like Muslim women and are seen as decadent.”

He added grimly: “Terrorist groups want to cause maximum outrage. Killing women would cause that.”

Around 1,000 revellers were crowded into the Tiger Tiger nightspot when the first deadly device was discovered — by pure luck.

Ambulancemen tending to a drunk who had fallen on the West End pavement spotted a silvery green Mercedes saloon filled with what appeared to be smoke. Police and firefighters raced to the scene in Haymarket — and were horrified by what they found.

The car was filled with FUMES from 60 litres of petrol — in cans on the back seat and in the boot. Valves were open on several gas canisters which were surrounded by bags of nails.

A mobile phone found in the vehicle was the trigger — rigged to a detonator. A call to it at 2am when the club closed would have caused carnage. The security source said: “The death toll could have been in the hundreds.”

Colleagues have long been aware that Western women are at the top of the hit-list for Islamic extremists.

During the Bluewater Bombers trial this year London’s Ministry of Sound nightclub was revealed to be a target.

One of the bombers described girls inside as “slags dancing around”.

At the Tiger Tiger club women are allowed in free on Thursdays — and can buy cheap drinks all night.

Yesterday’s first device was defused by a hero bomb disposal cop — who calmly reached into the Mercedes and ripped away the mobile phone.

He and a colleague had received the bomb alert at their secret HQ nearby and were on the scene in minutes.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Met’s counter-terrorism command, paid tribute to the pair’s courage in disabling the crude device manually. He said: “In so doing, not only did their action prevent damage and injury to property, but they have given us opportunities to gather a great deal of forensic and other evidence from the vehicle.”

The nightspot was evacuated as police sealed off the area — with club bouncers forming a ring around the Merc to keep people away. A colleague working at a different venue said: “They were sweating it a bit but they did what they had to do.”

Club reveller Alastair Patterson, 25, said: “All of a sudden the music stopped and the lights came on about 1.30am. Everyone was told to get out.

“Some people started booing and demanding they were allowed to finish their drinks. The place was full of totty. It always is on ladies’ night.

“We were all led out though a side door into an alleyway. It was only then we noticed the police and paramedics around the car.”

The second bomb car — in a blue Mercedes 280E — was parked on a double yellow line in Cockspur Street, which runs between the Haymarket and Trafalgar Square. It was issued with a ticket at 2.30am — and at 3.30am was towed to a pound in Park Lane. The same kind of bomb was discovered inside after workers smelled fumes.

Although the car was left outside the underground pound, experts believe the mobile phone trigger was still unable to receive its deadly signal.

A source said: “It is sheer fluke neither bomb went off.”

Police counter-terrorism chief Mr Clarke said of the second car: “There was a considerable amount of fuel and gas canisters. As in the first vehicle there was a substantial quantity of nails. This, like the first device, was made safe by the explosives officers.”

All ten Tiger Tiger nightspots across Britain — which include ones in Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle — were among clubs nationwide warned within the last fortnight they could be terror targets. A 53-page document was issued by police about the threat of VBIEDs — vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.

The alert stressed: “It is possible that your premises could be involved in a terrorist incident.” As police yesterday reminded West End clubs to take heed, a source said: “The security level in London is at critical — its highest level.” Some reports said the first bomb car was being driven erratically before it crashed into bins outside the club.

A man of Asian appearance was said to have jumped out and run off. Last night police were scouring CCTV footage from the area. A blue tent was erected around the Merc until 9am when it was put on a low loader and taken to be examined by forensic experts. A wide area of the West End stretching to Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square remained sealed off — causing traffic chaos.

Theatres, restaurants and other West End businesses were told to close for the day. The bombs may have been planted to coincide with Gordon Brown taking over as PM, according to security sources. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith chaired the Government’s COBRA emergency response committee just hours into her new job. It meets again today.

She warned: “We are currently facing the most severe and sustained threat.”

WERE you the drunken reveller, the hero cop or the clamper who took away the second car bomb? If you are — or know them — call our newsdesk on 020 7782 4104 or email exclusive@the-sun.co.uk

SUN REPORTING TEAM: Mike Sullivan, John Kay, Anthony France, Tom Wells, Antonella Lazzeri Gary O'Shea, Neil Syson.

    Bomber tried to kill 100s of girls, S, http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007300180,00.html

Bomb alerts and travel chaos

fail to deter West End revellers

Saturday June 30, 2007
Guardian
Rupert Neate, Rachel Williams and Helen Pidd

Office workers, students and tourists were still enjoying a Friday night out in London only hours after the chance discovery of two bombs in the capital. Bars and clubs remained open and Ken Livingstone, the mayor, urged the capital's communities to work together to defeat the terrorism threat.

With two areas of the city off limits because of the bombs commuters struggled with difficult journeys home in scenes reminiscent of the bomb attacks of July 2005, but bars and restaurants remained busy.

While the normally bustling Haymarket near Piccadilly Circus, which had been shut since about 2am yesterday, was still closed as police searched the scene, drinkers were determined to carry on with their evening plans. Summer Wallbank, 29, an Australian living in Streatham, south London, was drinking in the Albannach bar on Cockspur Street.

"I didn't know one of the car bombs was on this street. But when you're out you're out. You can't stop me going out ... It does feel a bit weird out tonight though," she said.

In Leicester Square, near Haymarket, where the first device was discovered outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub, Joanne Moss, 35, said she was determined to carry on with her night out.

"We still come out for dinner. The bombs have not put us off." Asked if security fears were in the back of her mind, she added: "No, but they're probably in the back of my mum's mind."

Kristine Phillips, 20, a student from Western Australia visiting on holiday was also in Leicester Square. "I am a bit scared but it's not going to put me off. "

Bar owners said they would increase security but would open for business as usual.

Philip Matthews, chairman of the Westminster Licensees Association which represents about 1,000 bars, clubs and restaurants, said he expected venues to keep their doors open but to be extremely vigilant.

Extra police patrols were taking place across the city and officers from the clubs and vice unit were visiting licensed premises to give crime prevention and safety advice.

Tarique Ghaffur, the Met's assistant commissioner, said many of the measures being put in place around London were developed after the July 7 bombings, adding that it was common after such incidents for there to be an increase in the number of reports of suspicious vehicles and packages.

"What we have in London is a tried and tested system and procedures in place to deal with it," he said."Our overriding objective is to protect the scenes, put in place cordons and to make sure those particular areas are properly searched."

In his statement, Mr Livingstone said the dense network of CCTV coverage in central London would help the security services find clues.

"These events show that we have to be constantly vigilant, and also that we need to respond calmly," he said.

"As the police have made clear the help of the public is going to be essential to completing this investigation."

    Bomb alerts and travel chaos fail to deter West End revellers, G, 30.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115283,00.html

5.30pm update

Police: car bomb

may have been inspired by al-Qaida

Friday June 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Vikram Dodd, Mark Tran, Hugh Muir and Sandra Laville

Senior police and Whitehall sources today said the failed attempt to inflict mass murder in central London was the work of al-Qaida or those inspired by its ideology.

"You only have to read past cases of those convicted for terrorism to realise they have been plotting to blow up nightclubs and putting gas cylinder bombs in cars," one senior source said.

Counter-terrorism sources said the car bomb found in Haymarket - one of London's main nightlife districts - was similar to car bombs used in Iraq.

The car had been left outside the Tiger Tiger club, near Piccadilly Circus, which had hundreds of people inside. More were milling around on the street.

Security services and police have been trying to boost the intelligence they have about violent extremists, but this attempted attack was "off the radar".

"There is no intelligence whatsoever that we were going to be attacked in this way," Peter Clarke, the Scotland Yard head of counter-terrorism, said.

Tension remained high amid concerns over a second car in Hyde Park. Police evacuated and sealed off a vast swathe of the central London park.

Sources said fears centred on a vehicle in an underground car park. Checks by anti-terror officers sent to the scene had led to it being regarded as suspect.

The police presence in the capital has also been has also increased.

"At this stage, we are deploying an enhanced level of patrolling in key areas in central London and across the capital," a police statement said.

"This is to provide a visible reassurance, and is not in response to any specific threat."

Police said the Haymarket device, made from gas cylinders, petrol and nails, could have killed or injured many people.

"Even at this stage, it is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been serious injury or loss of life," Mr Clarke said. "It was busy, and many people were leaving nightclubs."

He said police had gathered CCTV evidence, but added that it was too early to speculate about who was responsible.

The incident began when an ambulance was called to a nightclub at around 1am to treat a person who had fallen ill. The ambulance crew noticed a Mercedes parked outside the club, and saw that the vehicle appeared to have smoke inside it.

Mr Clarke said experts called to the scene found "significant quantities of petrol, together with a number of gas cylinders". "I cannot tell you how much petrol was in the car as we have not had a chance to measure it, but there were several large containers," he added.

Witnesses said they had seen the light metallic green saloon car being driven erratically earlier. It then crashed into bins before the driver ran away.

Police are searching landmark sites across London for further devices, and are unsure whether there was only one bomb or several deployed across the capital. No warnings were received.

The car was later loaded on to a lorry and taken away. Its most likely destination was the forensic explosives laboratory at Fort Halstead, in Kent, the site of a specialist facility known as the Igloo.

The security scare poses an early test for the new prime minister, Gordon Brown, and his home secretary, Jacqui Smith.

Cobra, the government's emergency response committee, met this morning to discuss the situation.

Amid speculation that the bomb had been timed to coincide with the changeover of government, Mr Brown said the alert underlined the continuing threat to Britain.

"The first duty of the government is the security of the people, and as the police and security services have said on so many occasions, we face a serious and continuous threat to our country," he said during a visit to a school in north London.

"We should allow the police to investigate this incident and then report to us. But this incident does recall the need for us to be vigilant at all times and the public to be alert at any potential incidents.

"I will stress to the cabinet that the vigilance must be maintained over the next few days."

Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, Ms Smith said the UK faced a "most serious and sustained threat" from terrorism.

She stressed that the bomb could have caused "significant loss of life" if it had exploded.

"We can never completely eliminate risks but the government, police and security services are all doing everything possible to protect the public," she told reporters on her first full day in the post.

Ms Smith spent the morning chairing the Cobra meeting before attending a cabinet session.

The defence secretary, Des Browne, told BBC Radio Scotland: "It does appear to be a very serious incident.

"My first reaction to this is, thank God that we have police and explosives experts who can make these devices safe, and that nobody has been injured."

Earlier this year, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, warned that what is happening on the streets of Baghdad - where car bombs explode frequently - could eventually reach London.

It emerged that anti-terrorist police last month spot-checked lorries on the outskirts of the city amid growing fears that extremists would use a bomb in a vehicle.

It is almost two years since four suicide bombers brought carnage to London's transport network, killing 52 people, on July 7 2005.

The current threat level for terrorism in the UK, set by MI5, is "severe" - meaning an attack is likely. It is just under "critical", the highest level of alert, and it is not yet known whether the level will change in light of today's events.

Senior police sources have stressed they have no direct intelligence that any group or individual is planning such an attack on London.

    Car bomb found in London, G, 29.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2114743,00.html

12.30pm

Gas canister bomb 'an amateur job'

Friday June 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
James Sturcke


The builders of the bomb found in central London today would have probably been "keen amateurs", an explosives expert said.

Patio gas cylinders found by police in the light green Mercedes would have been an unlikely weapon for experienced terrorists unless they wanted to create a fireball for the cameras, Sidney Alford, founder of explosives company Alford Technologies, told Guardian Unlimited.

As a readily available combustible material, the propane gas held in such cylinders might be considered by someone unable to source high explosives.

"If you are making a bomb and you are limited in the amount of explosives you can acquire you could easily get some gas cylinders of propane to add to them. They would give a more impressive fireball on TV," he said.

"They are probably keen amateurs who could not get their hands on the real thing and do not realise the limits of what they are doing."

The Metropolitan police's head of anti-terrorism, Peter Clarke, said there was also a "significant quantity" of petrol and nails in the car, as well as the gas. A witness reported nails were lying on the floor of the car, which Mr Alford said was another indication the bomb makers were inexperienced.

"Nails could be considered as an additional way of extending the potential damage and lethal range of the device but putting them on the floor is an incompetent way of building a bomb. They would go straight into the ground," he said.

Mr Alford said that unless there were also explosives present the main impact of the device would be in the economic disruption caused by closing off the normally bustling shops, restaurants and businesses of central London.

"As the IRA knew, you do not need a real bomb to cause real havoc," he said.

Police said the "potentially viable explosive device" was made safe. Mr Clarke said that had it exploded there could have been "significant injuries or loss of life".

Bomb disposal experts, Mr Alford said, may have used a water disruptor often delivered through a "pig stick" - similar to a gun barrel - to try and separate the components of the charge without triggering an explosion.

Water could be fired at near-supersonic speeds down the stick and its force would be enough to pierce metal and destroy the bomb, but without causing a spark.

It is believed to be unprecedented for gas canisters to be used for a bomb in the UK. They have sometimes been used elsewhere in the world as bomb casings - opened up and packed with explosives - or used for firing mortars. Police said they had yet to examine whether the cylinders contained patio gas as indicated on the label.

Michael Clarke, professor of defence at King's College London, said whoever was behind the intended attack would have left a lot of evidence at the scene that would help police track them down.

He said security services would be concerned that the bomb may be part of a wider plot, and that there could be other devices planted around the capital.

"They will find out about this very quickly," he said. "Any car coming into central London would be on a lot of surveillance footage. Also nobody can make a bomb without leaving behind a lot of DNA." Prof Clarke said it was almost certain the bomb was intended to detonate today.

    Gas canister bomb 'an amateur job', G, 29.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2114970,00.html

12.13pm

Q&A on today's car bomb incident

Friday June 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver

What happened today?

London is on high alert after a "potentially viable" explosive device was discovered in a car, a metallic light green Mercedes, at around 4am near Piccadilly Circus in the heart of the West End.

Officers were first alerted a couple of hours earlier by reports of a suspicious vehicle. Witnesses described seeing green propane gas canisters removed from the car by police.

Sources indicated it was a crude device.

It is not clear whether the device was primed to go off. There are no signs the police knew some form of car bomb attack was likely.

Are there concerns that there could be more car bombs in the capital?

Police are on high alert. There will be concerns terrorists may be adopting car bombings as a tactic - such bombings have become commonplace in Iraq.

The Home Office said today that the threat level was "severe", meaning that an "attack is highly likely". The threat level has been at the severe level since August 2006 when officials revealed arrests had been made over an alleged plot to blow up several transatlantic airliners en route from UK airports to the US.

Severe is the second highest level in the UK's five-tier terror warning system, which is public and updated on the Home Office website. The highest level, "critical", means that an attack is imminent.

Who is leading the investigation? The Metropolitan police's counter-terrorism command is in charge of the investigation. Deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke is the head of the unit, which was created in October 2006, taking over the roles of the anti-terrorist branch and special branch.

The idea was to create a cohesive, streamlined anti-terrorism command to combat the rising threat of Islamist terrorism.

The decision came following a review of the police response following the July 7 2005 suicide bombings in central London, in which 52 people were murdered.

DAC Clarke is also in charge of coordinating counter-terrorism at a national level.

What role is the government playing? The new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, will chair a meeting of Cobra, the civil emergencies committee, named after Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, in the bowels of Downing Street where it usually convenes.

Cobra is usually attended by senior ministers. Sometimes, the prime minister attends. Cobra met, for example, following the September 11 2001 attacks in the US, the July 7 attack on London, and the alleged failed bomb plot on July 21 2005.

Cobra does not just convene for terrorism issues. It also met to coordinate the response to the fuel protests in 2000, and more recently to discuss the bird flu threat to the UK.

The prime minister, Gordon Brown, in only his second day in the job, confirmed today that Ms Smith - the first female home secretary - will chair the Cobra meeting, and will report back to him and the cabinet.

Mr Brown said today's incident was a reminder that Britain faced "a serious and continuous threat" and the public "need to be alert" at all times.

Will the recent changes at the Home Office affect the response to the discovery of the bomb?

The changes will probably not have much impact. The Home Office was split in May this year, with the creation of a new Ministry of Justice, which acquired its responsibilities for prisons, courts, and probation.

The now slimmed-down Home Office retains responsibilities to concentrate on terrorism, security and immigration.

Ms Smith is the new home secretary, but it is not known yet who her junior ministers are.

Before this week's new government was formed, Tony McNulty was minister for security, counter-terrorism and police, and would have been involved in the response to the discovery of the bomb. Mr Brown is expected to announce junior ministerial positions today.

Do we know that this was some form of Islamist plot?

No, though Islamist extremists have posed the greatest terror threat to the UK since the September 11 attacks in the US, and since the threat of Irish Republican terrorism has receded. It is possible, however, that the device had nothing to do with Islamist terrorism. It could be linked to organised crime; or even some form of personal dispute.

How serious is the threat to the UK from terrorism at the moment?

It is difficult to quantify, but in a lecture in April this year, DAC Clarke dismissed claims that the threat is overblown and manipulated by politicians.

He said more than 100 people were awaiting trial for terrorist offences. Around the same time, there were reports the court system was under strain from the number of the terror cases it was required to hear. DAC Clarke said last summer that four major plots have been disrupted since the July 7 bombings, including one involving poison.

In his April lecture, he said al-Qaida had "momentum" and retained the ability to order devastating attacks on Britain. He repeated warnings that another attack on the UK was highly likely.

As Guardian crime correspondent Sandra Laville writes today, the police have identified some 250 high-risk suspects and around 700 medium-risk suspects. The tricky issue is how to use surveillance resources - deciding who to watch. Officers also know that tactics could change.

    Q&A on today's car bomb incident, G, 29.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2114963,00.html

11.15am

Security forces fear

Baghdad-style tactics in London

Friday June 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Sandra Laville, crime correspondent


Over the past two years anti-terrorism officers have scaled a steep learning curve as they try to tackle, and understand, the threat posed to Britain by Islamist terrorists.
The threat posed by the IRA at the end of the past century was very different from that of today. Inside Scotland Yard, detectives are faced with the knowledge that there are thousands of Islamist terror suspects at large, some of whom pose no immediate, direct threat; others who do.

The difficulty lies in choosing whom to watch when. Currently anti-terrorist officers are working on intelligence that suggests there are 250 high-risk terror suspects in the UK and 700 or so classed as medium risk. But individuals can swiftly move from peripheral figures to high-risk figures. Crucial to counter-terrorism are the choices senior officers must make when deciding which groups or individuals to target.

Today's discovery of a car bomb device in the heart of London's West End confirms what many experts within anti-terrorism have feared for some months. While the July 7 and July 21 attacks involved rucksack bombs carried by individuals intent on suicide and targeted on the transport system, no one has been in any doubt that terrorists are constantly changing their tactics and targets.

On the streets of Baghdad the use of car bombs is a daily tactic which reaps horrific results. Senior officers have been waiting and dreading for those tactics to be employed in the UK by homegrown Islamist extremists.

Recently Scotland Yard admitted that they were carrying out anti-terrorist spot checks on lorries entering the capital.

There are growing concerns that iconic sights will be targeted. For example, last week concern was raised privately about security at Wimbledon, when it was noted that there are no vehicle crash barriers in the streets directly outside the tennis championships.

Evidence of the past three years has also indicated that the transport system is not the only target being considered. The plotters in the Crevice fertiliser bomb plot were heard talking about several targets, including nightclubs and the Bluewater shopping centre, back in 2004.

However, despite private concerns of car bombs being used at landmark sites, there has been to date no intelligence to suggest that the tactic was being discussed by extremists.

The discovery of the car bomb today in Haymarket comes, therefore, out of the blue.

    Security forces fear Baghdad-style tactics in London, G, 29.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2114906,00.html

10.45am update

Car bomb found in London

Friday June 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Hugh Muir, Sandra Laville and Mark Tran

A car bomb was today defused in central London after a car was crashed into bins before the driver ran off.
A member of the public alerted Scotland Yard to the vehicle. The bomb, believed to be a crudely-made, propane gas-based device, was made safe.

Specialist teams of bomb disposal officers were sent to Haymarket, near Piccadilly, following the report that a car had been abandoned on the road just after 2am. Haymarket was closed off while the experts examined the car, causing major disruption to rush-hour commuters.

According to some witnesses, the light metallic green Mercedes saloon was driven erratically and crashed into bins near a nightclub. The driver was then seen running away.

During an initial investigation of the vehicle, officers found a potentially viable device. It was made safe three hours later.

Police are now frantically searching landmark sites across the capital for further explosive devices. They were not sure whether the bomb was a lone device or one of several deployed across London.

A police source said they did not know as yet who was responsible. No warnings were received.

The car was later loaded onto a lorry and taken away. Its most likely destination is the forensic explosives laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent, site of a specialist facility known as the Igloo.

It is understood the device was very crudely made. TV pictures showed a green gas canister - the colour for propane - on the ground behind the car.

The security scare near Piccadilly Circus, one of London's best-known landmarks, poses an early test for the new prime minister, Gordon Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair just two days ago, and the new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, who was today chairing a meeting of Cobra, the government's emergency response committee.

The alert marked an immediate test for his new team of ministers, Mr Brown said.

"The first duty of the government is the security of the people, and as the police and security services have said on so many occasions, we face a serious and continuous threat to our country," Mr Brown said.

"We should allow the police to investigate this incident and then report to us. But this incident does recall the need for us to be vigilant at all times and the public to be alert at any potential incidents. I will stress to the cabinet that the vigilance must be maintained over the next few days."

The defence secretary, Des Browne, told BBC Radio Scotland: "It does appear to be a very serious incident. My first reaction to this is, thank God that we have police and explosives experts who can make these devices safe, and the arrangements they appear to have done, and that nobody has been injured."

The bomb was found a few hours before the new cabinet was to hold its second meeting in as many days.

Earlier this year Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, warned that what takes place on the streets of Baghdad - where car bombs are a frequent occurrence - could eventually reach London. It emerged that anti-terrorist police last month were spot-checking lorries on the outskirts of the city amid growing fears that extremists would use a bomb in a vehicle.

It is almost two years since four suicide bombers brought carnage to London's transport network, claiming the lives of 52 people on July 7.

The current threat level for terrorism in the UK, set by MI5, is classed as "severe". It is not yet known if that will change in light of today's events.

But senior police sources have stressed they have no direct intelligence that any group or individual is planning such an attack on London.

One eyewitness told Sky News that door staff at the nightclub Tiger Tiger alerted police after the car was driven into bins and the driver ran off.

The witness said the large Mercedes was being driven "erratically" before the crash. The driver was not stopped. Tiger Tiger, a popular bar, club and restaurant with branches across the UK, is located at 29 The Haymarket.

Car bomb found in London, G, 29.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2114743,00.html