Scotland Terror Attack

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Fifth arrest over UK bomb plot

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

The arrests included a 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman seized on a major highway in northern England on Saturday night and another man, 26, who was detained in Liverpool, in the north-west of England on Sunday.

Those arrests were in addition to two men, who witnesses described as Asians, who were taken into custody on Saturday immediately after they slammed a Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow airport and set the vehicle ablaze.

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

Police said the man arrested in Liverpool was seized in connection with both events and said warrants were being used to search two addresses near Liverpool.

Following the series of threats, Britain raised its national security level to "critical", meaning the risk of another attack was imminent, and increased security at airports.

"We are dealing with a long-term threat. It is not going to go away in the next few weeks or months," Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said in a sombre appraisal of the terrorist threat facing Britain.

Outside Glasgow, Scotland's biggest city, police in white body suits searched houses in a town a short drive from the airport and set up forensic tents behind one building.

Neighbours said two Asian men had moved into one of the houses a month ago but had kept very much to themselves.

Of the two detained at Glasgow airport, one was badly burnt and listed in critical condition in hospital.

'Long battle'

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

"Irrespective of Iraq, irrespective of Afghanistan, irrespective of what is happening in different parts of the world, we have an international organisation trying to inflict the maximum damage on civilian life in pursuit of a terrorist cause that is totally unacceptable to most people," he said.

"Terrorism can never be justified as an act of faith. It is an act of evil in all circumstances."

Police said the Glasgow attack was linked to the thwarted London car bombs but did not say how.

The London plot bore the hallmarks of a previous Al Qaeda plan to attack London with fuel-filled cars, and another militant plan to bomb a major night club.

The series of plots come almost two years since the July 7, 2005 attacks on London's transport system, when four British Islamists blew themselves up and killed 52 commuters.

Three of the four bombers were from families who had come to Britain from the subcontinent. All four had visited Pakistan.

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

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

- Reuters

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British police arrest five after car bomb attacks

GLASGOW (Reuters) - British police arrested a fifth person on Sunday after a fuel-filled jeep was rammed into Scotland's busiest airport, a terrorist attack that police said was linked to two failed car bombings in London.

Three of the arrests were in northern England and followed the detention of two men, who witnesses described as Asian. They were seized on Saturday immediately after they slammed a Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow airport and set the vehicle ablaze.

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

Following the series of threats, Britain raised its national security level to "critical," meaning the risk of another attack was imminent, and increased security at airports.

"We are dealing with a long-term threat. It is not going to go away in the next few weeks or months," Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself a Scot who took office only last Wednesday, said in a somber appraisal of the terrorist threat facing Britain.

Outside Glasgow, Scotland's biggest city, police in white body suits searched houses in a town a short drive from the airport and set up forensic tents behind one building.

Neighbors said two Asian men had moved into one of the houses a month ago but had kept very much to themselves.

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

Police said the three arrests in the north of England were related to both the Glasgow and the London attacks, but did not provide further details. Two of the arrests were made overnight on a major highway and the third was made later on Sunday.

Of the two men detained at Glasgow airport, one was badly burnt and listed in critical condition in hospital.

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


Brown convened a meeting of top security chiefs to discuss measures to handle the first big test of his leadership.

"Irrespective of Iraq, irrespective of Afghanistan, irrespective of what is happening in different parts of the world, we have an international organization trying to inflict the maximum damage on civilian life in pursuit of a terrorist cause that is totally unacceptable to most people," he told BBC television.

"Terrorism can never be justified as an act of faith. It is an act of evil in all circumstances," he said.

JEEP ABLAZE

In Glasgow, 400 miles north of London, witnesses said two men intent on causing harm raced their green Jeep Cherokee into the glass doors of the airport terminal before dousing it in petrol and engulfing it in flames.

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

"There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident," the top police officer in the Glasgow area, Willie Rae, told reporters.

The series of plots come almost two years since the July 7, 2005 attacks on London's transport system, when four British Islamists blew themselves up and killed 52 commuters.

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

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

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Controlled explosion as terror suspects held



A controlled explosion has taken place outside a hospital where a terror suspect is being treated after an attack on Glasgow Airport.

Five people have been arrested in Glasgow, Cheshire and Liverpool following the attempt on the airport - when two men drove a blazing Cherokee Jeep into the entrance - and the chance discovery of two London car bombs 36 hours earlier.

A 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman were held late on Saturday on the M6 near Sandbach, Cheshire, after the Scottish arrests, which include one of the alleged attackers who was severely burned and admitted to Paisley's Royal Alexander hospital.

On Sunday morning another arrest was made in Liverpool. A large number of police officers descended on a house on a street off Penny Lane in the south of the city.

All five are being held in connection with the attempted airport bombing and bids in London's West End to blow up two Mercedes saloons loaded with petrol, gas canisters and nails outside a busy nightclub.

Speaking after chairing a meeting of the Government's Cobra emergency contingencies committee, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "We won't, as the British people be intimidated or let anyone stop us getting on with our lives".

Ms Smith urged the public to remain vigilant and to carry on reporting suspicious events to the public.

As the security level was raised to critical, police wearing white plastic bodysuits and face masks combed several houses near the airport, in the town of Houston, about six miles (10km) west of Glasgow.

Neighbours said two Asian men had moved into one of the searched houses, a five minute drive from the airport, about a month ago but had kept very much to themselves.

Mae Gordon, 67, said: "I don't remember seeing them at all. They were the only people around here you would never see."

Glasgow airport has reopened but there are delays and a number of flights have been cancelled. Passengers are urged not to come to the airport unless they have received confirmation that their flight will depart.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took office only days earlier, said: "We are dealing with a long-term threat. It is not going to go away in the next few weeks or months."

Mr Brown, who said he will make a statement on the terror alerts to the House of Commons on Monday, added: "We will have to be constantly vigilant. We will have to be alert at all times."

The PM said Britain's message to the terrorists must be: "We will not yield, we will not be intimidated and we will not allow anyone to undermine our British way of life."

"Irrespective of Iraq, irrespective of Afghanistan, irrespective of what is happening in different parts of the world, we have an international organisation trying to inflict the maximum damage on civilian life in pursuit of a terrorist cause that is totally unacceptable to most people," he said.

The series of plots come almost two years since the July 7, 2005 attacks on the London Underground, when four suicide bombers blew themselves up and killed 52 commuters.

The London car bombs also appeared to mirror an earlier plan, uncovered in 2004, in which an al-Qaeda operative wanted to detonated gas-filled limousines in London, and another plan in which militants intended to attack the Ministry of Sound nightclub.

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U.K. police detonate car outside Scottish hospital



Police conducted a controlled explosion on a car found outside a Scottish hospital treating one of the terror suspects connected with Saturday's airport attack and two foiled car-bomb plots in London's west end.

Police believed the vehicle was somehow connected to Saturday's attack on Glasgow airport but authorities said the bomb squad at Royal Alexandra Hospital did not find explosives.

Also on Sunday, police arrested a fifth suspect after searching a number of homes near the airport.

Four suspects were in police custody Sunday and a fifth man, who was in critical condition, remained under guard in a hospital.

Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said Sunday the perpetrators were not "born and bred here,'' effectively putting to rest any speculation that the attacks were a home-grown terror plot.

Sunday's police search took place about 11 kilometres from central Glasgow, approximately 1.5 kilometres from the Scottish airport.

"We can confirm as part of the ongoing inquiry into the incidents in Glasgow airport and London, a number of houses in the Renfrewshire area are being searched," police said in a brief statement regarding the search.

In central England, authorities also raided several buildings in the town of Newcastle-Under-Lyme, about 65 kilometres from Manchester.

The U.K. remained at its highest terrorist alert on Sunday.

Heavily armed anti-terrorist police arrested a 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman on a highway in Cheshire, a county located in northern England, on Saturday in connection with the Glasgow attack and the London plot.

Witnesses at the airport said two men drove their burning Jeep Cherokee at full speed through security barriers and into the glass doors at the entrance of the terminal.

Both men, one of them on fire, then exited the vehicle, say witnesses.

On Friday, two abandoned cars packed with explosives were found in central London.

Investigators say there are connections between the two attacks, which could have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people.

"There are very similar features to both incidents, and through that we have linked the two," Strathclyde Police Chief Constable Willie Rae told a press conference.

Police and security officials said all three vehicles had carried large amounts of flammable materials -- including gasoline and gas cylinders.

The recent terrorist threat has raised fears that the type of car bomb attack that has become commonplace in Iraq has now reached European shores.

In a column in Sunday's News of the World newspaper, Lord Stevens, Brown's new terrorism adviser, said, "This weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being waged on us by Islamic terrorists."

"This week's terrorists used the same technology, the same bomb-making techniques, the same operating methods as their brothers-in-arms in both Baghdad and Bali," Indonesia, he said.

On Sunday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown remained defiant during a nationally televised interview on the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Brown said it is "clear that we are dealing, in general terms, with people who are associated with al Qaida."

The newly appointed prime minister urged the people of Britain to be 'vigilant' and support the police and security services.

"I know that the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong," Brown said during the televised address.

"We will not yield, we will not be intimidated, and we will not allow anyone to undermine our British way of life."

He also said, "Everything is being done in our power ... to protect people's lives."

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Country on highest alert after carnage averted

BRITAIN was expecting a fresh wave of terrorist attacks last night after police arrested five people over an assault on Glasgow Airport and two attempted car bombings in London.

The country has moved to its highest level of terrorism alert - critical - after a Jeep driven by two men crashed into the airport terminal and burst into flames on Saturday afternoon, and the Government's emergency response unit, Cobra, is holding its fourth meeting in three days.

The new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, faces a huge challenge only days into his term, with speculation rife that Glasgow was attacked because Scotland is his home.

Britain would not give in to acts of evil, he said. "We will not yield, we will not be intimidated and we will not allow anyone to undermine our British way of life," he told BBC television.

Police, who say the two attacks are linked, arrested two men - one fighting for his life after receiving severe burns - in Glasgow. Properties in that city and Liverpool were searched.

In the US, ABC news reported that American law enforcement officials received intelligence reports a fortnight ago warning of a possible attack in Glasgow against "airport infrastructure or aircraft". The reports also warned that airports and aircraft in the Czech Republic could be targeted by al-Qaeda-connected terrorists.

The warnings were kept secret for operational reasons, officials told ABCNews.com. One said that the intelligence reports led to the assignment of federal air marshals to flights in and out of Glasgow and Prague.

Mr Brown's new terrorism adviser, the former Metropolitan Police chief commissioner Lord Stevens, said "al-Qaeda has imported the tactics of Baghdad and Bali to our streets. And it will get worse before it gets better."

The Glasgow attack came a day after two car bombs that failed to detonate were discovered outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in the Piccadilly Circus area of London.

The bombs - two Mercedes-Benz cars packed with petrol, nails and gas canisters - resembled devices regularly used by Iraqi insurgents, and explosives specialists said they would have caused huge fireballs that could have killed and injured hundreds.

Yesterday police arrested two people on the M6 motorway in northern England, and one in Liverpool. The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, refused to comment on a report that those arrested on the motorway were the drivers of the two car bombs left in London. Scotland Yard confirmed, however, that a man, 26, and a woman, 27, detained on the M6 were being interviewed at a London police station.

At Glasgow Airport bystanders helped police overpower two men who jumped from the burning Jeep and tried to detonate the vehicle by pouring petrol over it.

One was in flames, "throwing punches at police and shouting 'Allah, Allah," a Glasgow emergency worker, Jon Smeaton, told the BBC. An airport restaurant worker, Scott McEwan, said a tall South Asian man climbed out of the car door "literally on fire. There were flames coming from his arms, legs and hair and even his face seemed to be burning. But he was totally dead calm.

"He just walked around to the back of the Jeep and was trying to open the boot," Mr McEwan told News of the World. "People were shouting and screaming, 'He's got a bomb, he's got a bomb."'

Stephen Clarkson told the BBC that after the Jeep crashed he saw a South Asian man lying on the ground with "flames coming from his body". "It was just lucky that I was there," he said. "I managed to knock the man to the ground with my forearm and the police got on top of him and restrained him."

Reports that one of the men was wearing a suicide belt led to the temporary evacuation of the hospital where he was being treated for burns. Police later discounted the reports.

As police continued a huge manhunt for three more men thought to be behind the London plot, they were struck by the similar style of the three incidents but were unsure whether the Glasgow one was a copycat incident or part of a planned wave of attacks.

The intelligence agency MI5 is reported to believe all three were carried out by a previously unknown al-Qaeda terrorist cell that is planning a spate of Baghdad-style car bombings.

Lord Stevens told News of the World that suspicion was growing that al-Qaeda operatives - perhaps British-born - "have returned from Iraq as well as the traditional training camps in Afghanistan to guide groups here".

As Scottish police sealed off and searched houses in the town of Houston, about nine kilometres south-west of Glasgow - a Reuters witness saw officers wearing white overalls coming in and out of a semi-detached house in the town - officers across Britain stepped up the hunt for five terrorism suspects who are on the run after escaping from house arrest.

One of them, Lamine Adam, boasted of targeting nightclubs in evidence to a recent terrorism trial in which five people were jailed for planning fertiliser bomb attacks, including one on London's biggest nightclub, the Ministry of Sound.


The trial raised concern that terrorists were focusing on nightclubs as part of a war against Western life.

In a bugged conversation, one of the convicted men said that if they attacked a disco, "no one can even turn around and say 'Oh they were innocent' - those slags dancing around."

Other men urgently wanted by police are Asam's brother Ibrahim, 20, and Cerie Bullivant, 24, who have also evaded control orders.

Among others being sought by police is a former Tube worker, Zeeshan Siddiqui, 26. A court has heard how he trained with a London suicide bomber in Pakistan. Another man police want to track down, even if only to eliminate him from their inquiries, is Bestun Salim, who vanished from his Manchester home last year and allegedly has links to Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to the terrorist network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the notorious insurgent leader in Iraq who was killed last year.

However, police were yesterday playing down a link between the five escapees and the latest attempted terrorist attacks.

Roads near airports across the country were in chaos following the two incidents, as armed police began stopping vehicles entering airport precincts.

Liverpool's John Lennon Airport was closed for eight hours on Saturday night as police investigated a suspicious vehicle.

In London extra police were called in to monitor events, including the Gay Pride Festival and the tennis at Wimbledon on Saturday.

The Prime Minister urged Britons to "carry out their lives as normal", including going to nightclubs if they wished. Londoners and tourists appeared to heed the advice, seemingly untroubled and going about their business as usual.

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تدابیر امنیتی مسافرتی در بریتانیا و آمریکا


ماموران پلیس در مسیرهای منتهی به پایانه های مسافرتی تعداد از فرودگاه ها مستقر شده اند
با کشف و خنثی شدن یک رشته توطئه خرابکاری در بریتانیا تدابیر امنیتی ویژه ای در شبکه حمل و نقل این کشور و خطوط هوایی ایالات متحده به اجرا گذاشته شده است.
درحالیکه در بریتانیا وضعیت فوق العاده امنیتی برقرار شده و پلیس به جستجو برای افراد مرتبط با تلاش برای بمب گذاری در لندن، پایتخت، و گلاسگو، در اسکاتلند، ادامه می دهد، در روز دوشنبه، 2 ژوئیه، ایستگاه ها و برخی از فرودگاه ها تحت نظارت ویژه قرار گرفته است.

ماموران پلیس در مسیرهای منتهی به پایانه های تعدادی از فرودگاه ها از جمله فرودگاه هیثرو لندن، و فرودگاه های ادینبورگ، نیوکاسل، بیرمنگام، منچستر و بلکپول مستقر شده و از نزدیک شدن خودروها حتی تاکسی به این مراکز جلوگیری می کند.

مسافران هواپیماها ناگزیر باید مسافتی را برای رسیدن به ترمینال ها پیاده طی کنند.

این اقدامات در زمانی به اجرا گذاشته می شود که با فرا رسیدن تعطیلات تابستانی در بریتانیا، بر مسافرت های هوایی به طرز چشمگیری افزوده شده است.

همچنین ماموران پلیس خودروهای ورودی به ایستگاه های قطار را متوقف می کنند و به بازرسی آنها می پردازند و به مسافران شبکه حمل و نقل شهری هشدار داده شده که ممکن است سفرهای آنان با تاخیر صورت گیرد.

به گفته مقامات امنیتی، حضور آشکار پلیس در محل هایی که ممکن است هدف خرابکاران قرار گیرد به نوبه خود نوعی اقدام پیشگیرانه محسوب می شود.

همزمان، منابع امنیتی ایالات متحده نیز اعلام داشته اند که بر تعداد ماموران پلیس هواپیمایی خواهند افزود و در برخی از فرودگاه ها، اقدامات امنیتی تشدید شده است.

ماموران مسلح پلیس هوایی به منظور حفظ امنیت مسافران و مقابله با اقدامات تروریستی در حین پرواز مورد استفاده قرار می گیرند.

در عین حال، مسئولان اداره امنیت داخلی ایالات متحده گفته اند که اطلاعات خاصی در باره تهدید تروریستی علیه هدف هایی در این کشور دریافت نکرده اند.

تلاش برای دستگیری توطئه گران

در بریتانیا، پلیس این کشور به تلاش برای بازداشت افراد مظنون به ارتباط با توطئه بمب گذاری در لندن و گلاسگو ادامه می دهد.

در تعدادی از فرودگاههای آمریکا نیز بر پیش بینی های امنیتی افزوده شده است

تا کنون پنج نفر از جمله محمد اشا، پزشک بیست و شش ساله لبنانی، و یک زن بیست و هفت ساله بازداشت شده اند و به گفته منابع پلیس، هنوز یک مظنون دیگر فراری است و دستگیر نشده است.

گفته می شود که هیچیک از بازداشت شدگان زاده بریتانیا نیست و خبرنگار بی بی سی می گوید که ظاهرا تمامی بازداشت شدگان از اهالی کشورهای خاورمیانه هستند.

روز جمعه، 29 ژوئن، دو اتومبیل بمب گذاری شده در مرکز لندن کشف و خنثی شد و روز شنبه نیز یک اتومبیل، ظاهرا با هدف اجرای عملیات انتحاری، پس از برخورد به در ورودی پایانه فرودگاه گلاسگو آتش گرفت.

رییس مرکز مبارزه با تروریسم پلیس لندن گفته است که با انجام تحقیقات اولیه، ارتباط بین اقدام برای بمب گذاری در لندن و تلاش برای اجرای عملیات انتحاری در گلاسگو روشنتر شده است.

به همین دلیل، منابع امنیتی وقوع حملات تروریستی دیگری را منتفی ندانسته اند.

گوردون براون، نخست وزیر بریتانیا گفته است که کاملا آشکار شده که افراد مرتبط با توطئه های اخیر با شبکه القاعده ارتباط داشته اند.

در آمریکا، جورج بوش، رییس جمهوری، اظهار داشت که توطئه بمب گذاری در بریتانیا نشان داد که مبارزه با افراطگری همچنان ادامه دارد و از "واکنش قاطعانه" مقامات بریتانیایی در این زمینه تقدیر به عمل آورد.

بان کی مون، دبیرکل سازمان ملل متحد، با صدور بیانیه ای توطئه اجرای عملیات تروریستی در بریتانیا را محکوم کرد و گفت که در سفر به لندن در هفته آینده، این موضوع را با نخست وزیر این کشور بررسی خواهد کرد.

قرار است روز دوشنبه، 2 ژوئیه، جکی اسمیت، وزیر کشور بریتانیا، با ارائه گزارشی، نمایندگان مجلس عوام را در جریان تحولات چند روز اخیر بگذارد.