WORLD / Europe
British look for links in failed plot
(AP)
Updated: 2007-07-06 08:48
GLASGOW, Scotland - When two doctors crashed a Jeep Cherokee into
Glasgow's Airport and then set it on fire in a desperate attempt to
ignite crude bombs it was clear to a policeman on the scene that they
were on a suicide mission.
People crowd outside the house of Sabeel Ahmed, an Indian doctor in
Bangalore, India, Thursday, July 5, 2007. [AP]
"They did not have a plan B," said Sgt. Torquil Campbell, who apprehended
suspects Bilal Abdulla and Khalid Ahmed after the botched attempt to
wreak havoc among Scottish vacationers packing the airport terminal.
"They both appeared very calm and collected, very assured of themselves,"
Campbell said Thursday on Sky TV. "They had nothing else to do - it was
as if they were waiting there to get blown up."
Baggage handler John Smeaton jumped into the fray, helping police
grappling with the suspects. "I got a kick in," he told The Guardian
newspaper. "Other passengers were getting kicks in. The flames were going
in two directions."
The eight suspects arrested in Saturday's airport attack and two failed
car bombings a day earlier in London were all foreigners working for
Britain's state health system, and investigators are pressing to find
what brought them together. They also are looking for links between the
six Middle Eastern suspects and two Indian nationals arrested in the case.
Police have refused to release "operational details" of the case. But the
investigation would now be at the analysis stage, said Bob Ayers, a
former US intelligence officer now at Chatham House, an international
affairs think tank in London.
"They've got all the evidence they're ever going to have. There may still
information coming in, but it will be based on what they've already got,
like DNA from the cars," Ayers said.
Using cell phones recovered from two Mercedes sedans loaded with gasoline
and propane tanks in London and other telephone records, authorities are
building up a "link analysis" of what calls were made, Ayers said.
"They're recreating the network of all the people involved and building
that network using cell phone records, computer records, DNA,
fingerprints - anything that will establish who was communicating with
whom," he said.
At least five of those in custody appear to have some link to Glasgow's
Royal Alexandra Hospital.
Ahmed, identified by staff at the hospital as Lebanese physician employed
there, is now being treated at the facility for horrific burns suffered
when he set himself on fire after crashing the Jeep loaded with
rudimentary bombs into the airport's main terminal Saturday.
Abdulla, a passenger in the Jeep, is an Iraqi doctor employed by Royal
Alexandra, and a doctor there has said a Jordanian physician held in the
case had an office at the hospital.
Two other suspects, men aged 25 and 28 whose identities have not been
revealed, were arrested at the hospital's residences. Staff described
them as a junior doctor and a medical student.
On Thursday, police were still examining a Glasgow house rented by
Abdulla, which a British security official said authorities believed was
the site where the plotters made the bombs used in both the London and
the airport attacks.
Neighbor Susan Hay told The Associated Press that police said they were
"stripping" the home Thursday morning to look for fingerprints and other
forensic materials. A large tent - set up Sunday - screened the garage.
Police have refused to identify which suspects lived in the house, but
Denis O'Donnell of the local Paisley Cab Company, said his taxis had
picked up Abdulla at the house frequently.
"We picked him up between 18 to 19 times since about May 20, mostly to
the hospital but once to the airport," O'Donnell told AP.
Brian Harvey, a 60-year-old construction worker who lives on the street,
said he had seen a green Jeep Cherokee parked outside the home. "It
seemed unusual, strange over here," Harvey said, explaining that most
other vehicles on the street were more modest.
Abdulla is believed to have known suspect Mohammed Asha, when Asha worked
at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, where Abdulla has relatives.
Abdulla visited Cambridge as recently as three weeks ago, and was there
regularly to visit an uncle and his grandmother, said a cafe owner who
once rented Abdulla an apartment in the eastern city. He agreed to talk
about Abdulla only if his name wasn't used, to avoid damaging his
relations with the suspect's family.
Shiraz Maher, a former member of a radical Islamic group, said earlier
this week that he knew Abdulla at Cambridge University and described the
suspect as a hard-line Muslim.
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