******Scroll Down for Updates*****
Bomber: An off duty policeman sprays water at a burning bomber who tried to ignite explosives at Glasgow Airport
Five arrested over car bomb terror attacks
Homes searched as risk of attack in Britain is ‘imminent’
Five people have been arrested as Britain moved to its highest state of terror alert after three failed car bombings.
Police are linking an attempt to ram a flaming Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow Airport yesterday to the discovery of two car bombs in London’s West End on Friday.
The two men inside the Jeep were arrested at the airport, although one of them suffered severe burns after being engulfed in flames and is now in a critical condition in hospital.
Anti-terror officers from the Met and West Midlands Police later arrested a further two people on the M6 in connection with all the attacks, Scotland Yard said.
The two arrested on the motorway were a 26-year-old man and 27-year-old woman. They are today being interviewed at a central London police station.
A 26-year-old man has also been arrested in Liverpool in connection with the national terror alert.
It is understood that police used a taser gun on this man and that two addresses are being searched in Liverpool.
Police are now searching houses west of Glasgow as the terror alert in Britain remains critical.
“We can confirm that, as part of the ongoing enquiry into the incidents at Glasgow airport and London, a number of houses in the Renfrewshire area are being searched,” police said.
And police officers have also blocked off part of Penny Lane in south Liverpool.
The search: Police cordon off a house in Houston near Glasgow after the terrorist threat in Britain was raised to critical
Extra officers will be deployed to the capital’s landmarks and main train stations, as well as Heathrow Airport and London City Airport, Scotland Yard said.
Police Officers stand on guard in Piccadilly, central London, Sunday, July 1, 2007.
A giant TV screen shows passengers the latest news at Victoria train station, Central London, Sunday, July 1, 2007
Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the country was dealing with terrorists associated with al-Qaida. And Lord Stevens, Brown’s new terrorism adviser, said the two attacks in Britain indicate that “al-Qaida has imported the tactics of Baghdad and Bali to the streets of the UK.”
And a controlled explosion was just heard at the hospital where Glasgow suspect was taken. There was a suspicious vehicle at the hospital and police detonated it.
U.K. police make 5th terror arrest
Update 11:17 AM
UK police are now conducting raids in Newcastle-UnderLyme, South of Birmingham, connected with the terror attacks.
Update 11:30 AM
The American Airlines terminal at JFK airport in New York City has been evacuated and the bomb squad called.
Update 11:38 AM
All clear at JFK Airport
Update 11:47 AM
Michelle asks the question: Where in the world is Zeeshan Siddiqui?
Flap had already asked the question about these other control order escapees:
The Observer:How did car bombers slip through the net?
Lamine Adam, 26, his brother Ibrahim, 20 and Cerie Bullivant, 24
We will know shortly if the Brits had these folks and then let them go to terrorize again.
Update 12:43 PM
Glasgow Police News Presser
Appeal for information from the public; learning about people involved in attacks; links between 3 attacks clearer; confident coming days and weeks will understand methods of terrorists and network to which they belong; forensic exam extremely valuable; CCTV material helping to piece together events; will take many weeks to complete; man and woman arrested today being taken to London to be interviewed; not right to give running commentary; due process must be allowed to run its course; public safety is our top priority;
Questions:
Will give no details about people in custody.
More security measures since attacks:
Restrictive zones at all airports; barriers and limited pick up and delivery
More vehicle checks
Update 1:35 PM
Crevice Gang Behind Terror Plot?
Police check Bluewater gang’s links to attempt to bomb clubs
Detectives hunting the West End car bombers believe the suspects are most likely to be home-grown extremists linked to an overlapping network of terrorist cells implicated in previous plots against British targets.
Some may be known to police and be on the run after escaping Home Office control orders.
Those in the frame may be associates of the so-called Crevice gang, which planned to attack the Ministry of Sound nightclub in central London and the Bluewater shopping mall in Kent.
Members of the five-man cell, who were jailed for life in April, were directed by “core†Al-Qaeda figures after training in terror camps in Pakistan.
A key member of the Crevice gang was Anthony Garcia. During his trial, an Al-Qaeda supergrass revealed that Garcia’s brother, Lamine Adam, had allegedly wanted to bomb a nightclub and was seeking a formula for explosives.
The supergrass’s testimony was not considered strong enough for prosecution. However, Adam, 26, and his younger brother, Ibrahim, 20, were placed on control orders in February 2006 on the grounds that they planned to kill British soldiers serving abroad.
The two brothers and a friend, Cerie Bullivant, 24, who was put on a control order last July, went on the run six weeks ago. Police think they may have slipped abroad, but they cannot rule out that the trio could still pose a threat within the UK.
Breaking: UK security is now “profiling” travelers at airports – searching them if they fit their profile.
CBS: UK police know the identity of one of the London bombers.
Update 3:08 PM
Sky News: Glasgow Car Bomb did NOT contain nails like London failed bombs. This does not lower the connection between London and Glasgow events – just that they were packed in a different way.
Update 4:32 PM
Sky News: Five suspects are not British citizens and are of Middle Eastern or Asian extraction.
Sixth suspect is wanted and is considered armed and extremely dangerous
Update 4:44 PM
AP: A terminal at Heathrow Airport has been closed due to discovery of a suspicious package
British Muslims Worry About Backlash
Good grief……
MI5 fear bombers were ‘off the radar’
Update 6:02 PM
Sky News: Two of the five terror suspects being held in the wake of the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow are believed to be hospital doctors working in the UK.
The majority of the five terror suspects being held in police custody in connection with bomb attacks in London and Glasgow are not British and at least one is still at large, according to Sky sources.
Sky sources believe one of the men arrested at Glasgow airport and a 26-year-old man arrested on the M6 with a 27-year-old woman in Cheshire are both doctors.
Sky Crime Reporter Martin Brunt said: “This is very far removed from the picture we normally have. These are professional people with highly paid jobs who are intent on killing people.”
Two men were arrested after ramming a Jeep into Glasgow Airport on Saturday and two people were arrested on the M6. A fifth terror related arrest was made in Liverpool after a car was stopped in the Lime Street area of the city.
Update 7:39 PM
Out of harm’s way: Police officers hold down one of the badly-burned men outside the Glasgow arrivals hall moments after he had set himself alight
Daily Mail: Two doctors held over bomb attacks
READ it ALL
Two doctors were among five people being held as terror suspects last night after the bomb plots in London and Glasgow.
One was one of two men who tried to drive a blazing Jeep packed with petrol, gas canisters and nails into Glasgow Airport on Saturday.
Police are still investigating the precise links between that attack and the two Mercedes car bombs left in the West End of London early on Friday.
Both doctors were working at UK hospitals and were apparently here legally.
One of the doctors, the man arrested on the M6, was said to be a Jordanian-born doctor at the North Staffordshire Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent.
He lived with his wife and baby in a rented house in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, where forensic officers were carrying out a detailed search last night.
The doctor is suspected of having played a key role in the planning of the terror strikes.
One of the two men overpowered as they attacked Glasgow Airport has 90 per cent burns and is too badly injured to be interviewed, but the second was being questioned last night.
Police believe they are all part of a previously unknown Al Qaeda-linked cell made up of people of Middle Eastern origin.
The doctor involved in the Glasgow attack is an Iraqi who is thought to have been granted asylum in the UK while a third suspect comes from Lebanon.
A bomb factory is believed to have been found at an address in Scotland and more arrests are expected.
Police had been close been on the trail of the Glasgow bombers, checking an address linked to them just minutes before they drove their four wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee into the airport arrivals lounge.
Held: The couple are arrested on the M6
The burnt out gas cannisters used to cause the fire at Glasgow Airport on Saturday afternoon
Time Table:
OVER 36 HOURS… THE TIMETABLE OF TERROR
1.25AM Green Mercedes packed with 13 gallons of petrol, gas cylinders and nails left outside Tiger Tiger nightclub in central London’s Haymarket.
Paramedics treating a drunken reveller spot smoke in the car and call police who defuse the bomb with minutes to spare.
2.30AM Blue Mercedes found illegally parked on nearby Cockspur Street and is ticketed.
3.30AM Second Mercedes is towed to a car pound in Park Lane where employees notice a gas-like smell.
1.15PM Police evacuate the pound as bomb disposal team is called to defuse a device made from two telephones linked to canisters on the back seat. ‘It was pure luck neither device went off,’ said a security source.
1.40PM Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says Britain is ‘currently facing a most serious and sustained’ threat.
3.05PM Scottish police contact a letting agency responsible for a home in Neuk Crescent, Glasgow, and ask about the tenants staying there.
3.15PM A blazing Jeep Cherokee crashes into the arrivals hall of Glasgow Airport. An Asian man clutching a Molotov cocktail-type device is held by police and passers-by.
A second Asian man sets himself alight with petrol before fighting with police and security staff.
8PM National terror threat level raised to ‘Critical’ by Jacqui Smith on the advice of MI5. This means further attacks are expected ‘imminently’.
8.40PM Prime Minister Gordon Brown gives televised address to the nation in which he urges ‘vigilance’. His message to the terrorists is: ‘We will not yield, we will not be intimidated and we will not allow anyone to undermine our British way of life.’
9.30PM Police raid a house rented by a 26-year-old Jordanianborn doctor in Newcastleunder-Lyme, Staffordshire.
11.15PM-2AM Stand off involving at least eight armed officers who try to enter a property in Hatherley Street, Liverpool. Three men and one woman are taken away by police, but are released the next day.
11.30PM The Jordanian doctor and a 27-year-old woman wearing a Muslim veil are arrested on the M6 in Cheshire. Seven unmarked police cars containing more than 20 officers box his car on to the hard-shoulder.
The couple are taken to a central London police station for questioning.
12.10PM Police raid an address in Ramilies Road, near Penny Lane, Liverpool.
1AM A 26-year-old man linked to the Ramilies Road house is arrested near Liverpool’s Lime Street station.
4.30AM Police search a house in Neuk Crescent, Glasgow, thought to be used by the airport attackers.
Neighbour tells how Asian men moved into the house about three months ago. In the past week one was seen washing a Jeep Cherokee.
2.15PM Controlled explosion is carried out on a car at the Scottish hospital where one of the airport terror attack suspects is being treated.
Supergrass:
An Al Qaeda supergrass held in the U.S. is to be shown pictures of the terror suspects arrested in Britain in the hope that he can identify them.
Former New York taxi driver Mohammed Junaid Babar, who identified the July 7 ringleader and played a pivotal role in the jailing at the Old Bailey last month of an Al Qaeda cell plotting to blow up London nightclubs, is also likely to be asked to help identify CCTV images of fleeing would-be bombers.
U.S. officials say the image of a man seen running from the Mercedes near the Tiger Tiger club early on Friday “resembled” a suspect arrested previously in connection with the investigation into so-called Al Qaeda “General” Dhiren Barot.
Update 8:22 PM:
Reports that a number of terror suspects on control orders who had absconded might be responsible were dismissed by security sources. Seven suspects have gone missing, but it is thought they have all left the country.
Sources also denied a report from the US that America had warned British intelligence two weeks ago of a plot to attack Glasgow airport.
Update 11:18 PM
Police confident in bombers hunt
Two of those held by police are a 26-year-old man and 27-year-old woman who were arrested on the M6 near Sandbach, Cheshire, on Saturday night.
The man has been identified by the BBC as Dr Mohammed Asha.
Both have been taken to Paddington Green police station in London for questioning.
Glasgow – Burning car driven into doors of Glasgow Airport on Saturday. Two people arrested at scene
London – Two car bombs that failed to detonate found in central London on Friday
Paisley – Controlled explosion carried out on car at Royal Alexandra Hospital
Cheshire – Man and woman arrested overnight on M6, then taken to London for questioning
Liverpool – Man arrested. Police searching two addresses
Houston – Police searching houses in village near Glasgow
Newcastle-under-Lyme – Police searching house in Staffordshire
The BBC has learned those arrested are believed to be of varying Middle Eastern nationalities.
Security is also to be stepped up at the Wimbledon Championships, in south-west London, when the tennis tournament resumes on Monday.
Road blocks have been set up in front of the gates to the All England Club.
Stay tuned for breaking developments
Others Blogging:
Previous:UK Terror Watch: Video – Glasgow Bomb Suspects Shouted “ALLAHâ€
Rudy Giuliani Watch: Rudy Links Terrorism and Border Security
Michael Ramirez on John Edwards and the UK Terrorist Bombings
UK Terror Watch: Flaming Car Rams into Glasgow Airport Part 2;Update – Police Have Made Two More Arrests in Cheshire, England in London, Glasgow Terror Incidents
UK Terror Watch: Flaming Car Rams into Glasgow Airport; Update: U.S. Boosting Presence of Security
Officials at Airports; Update: Eyewitness Reports – One of Car Bombers Fought with Police Shouting Allah Allah;Britain Raises Security Level to Critical – Another Attack Imminent; Update: Terror Suspect Dies? Or
Not?; Update: Glasgow Incident Linked to London Attack Yesterday; Update: Three Suspects Involved at Glasgow – One Dead at Scene
Terror in London Watch: Police Have Crystal Clear Image of Car Bomber
Terror in London Watch: Explosives-Packed Car Defused; Update: UK Launches Manhunt for Failed Car Bombers; Update: A Suspect Has Been Identified on Camera; Update:3 sought after 2nd car bomb found in London
Technorati Tags: London, Global War on Terror, United Kingdom, Glasgow
Entries (RSS)