UNITED KINGDOM: British PM says terror threat dealt with "admirably"

Record ID: 351866

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: British PM says terror threat dealt with "admirably"
  • Date: 3rd July 2007
  • Summary: WIDE OF TRAFFIC IN STREET INTERSECTION
  • Embargoed: 18th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA1HCD40FPTBIGY8NJ0CT8L5RRD
  • Story Text: As police continued to hold eight suspects, including one in Australia, in connection with the car bomb plots in London and Scotland, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has praised the new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for her handling of the incidents.
    At a cabinet meeting held at Number Ten Downing Street on Tuesday (July 3), Brown spoke of "the difficult security issues that she's dealt with brilliantly over the past few days."
    The series of foiled and actual attacks poses a stern test for Brown, a Scot who replaced Tony Blair only last week and who has come under pressure from some quarters to change policy on Iraq and withdraw British troops.
    Fearing further attacks, police have banned cars and other vehicles from directly approaching airports, and security measures have been stepped up across the country. Authorities kept the threat level at "critical", the highest rating.
    London police carried out a controlled explosion on suspicious objects in the Hammersmith area of west London and investigated a suspicious vehicle in the city's financial district near the Tower of London. Both security alerts were subsequently lifted.
    Security sources said all those detained over this plot had links to the medical profession. Some of them are thought to be hospital workers or medical students.
    A British security source told Reuters that two of the eight suspects were Indian and the rest were Middle Eastern and "quite a few" are doctors.
    A police source said they were still looking for other suspects to check they had all those who might be involved.
    Police carried out a controlled explosion on a car at a mosque in Glasgow early on Tuesday. They said the car was linked to the bomb plot investigation, but stressed it had not contained explosives and had been destroyed as a precaution.
    Two men drove a fuel-laden vehicle into Glasgow airport on Saturday (June 30).
    Some Muslim Glasgow residents said they were upset fellow Muslims were suspected of involvement in the bomb plot.
    "We don't feel good if the Muslim people are doing this kind of thing. This is really really bad, I don't like this kind of thing if the Muslim people do that," one Muslim resident of the city said.
    Bashir Maan, Chairman of the Central Glasgow Mosque, said he feared the incidents would affect relations between Muslims and the wider community in Scotland.
    "We have had a very good experience in Scotland, no complaints. But I am sure that this evil which was committed at Glasgow airport is going to affect our relationships. But the hope is that realising that the perpetrators of this crime were not from Scotland, I hope I think it will influence the thinking of the people for the better," he said in an interview.
    Police on Tuesday were still posted outside a building in a residential area of the Scottish town of Paisley, where a number of the suspects lived. The police had carried out a controlled explosion at the building late Monday (July 2).
    One of the two men involved in the explosion in Glasgow airport is under arrest in hospital in Scotland, and being treated for severe burns. Police sources said on Tuesday he was in a critical condition.
    The investigation has spread to Australia, where police detained an Indian doctor, Mohamed Haneef, under counter-terrorism laws. Three of the doctors being questioned trained overseas and had worked at British hospitals.
    A public relations company acting for the hospital in England where Haneef worked until 2005, said a man arrested in Liverpool on Sunday was a doctor who had also worked there.
    Of the other doctors held over the plot, British police sources named one as Bilal Abdulla, who qualified in Iraq in 2004, and another as Mohammed Asha, who qualified in Jordan the same year. Asha's wife was also arrested.
    Britain has seen a marked increase in terrorism-related attacks since the Sept. 11 strikes on the United States and its decision to join U.S. forces in invading Iraq in 2003.
    Previous attacks, including one on London's transport system in July 2005 which killed 52 people, have mainly involved disaffected British-born Muslims, not educated professionals from overseas, security experts say.
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