This brings the total up to five:
GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) – Police searched several houses near Glasgow’s airport and made a fifth arrest Sunday in connection with a fiery attack on its main terminal and foiled car bombings in London, which the prime minister suggested were carried out by terrorists linked to al-Qaida.
The terrorist threat that Britain faces is “long-term and sustained,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a nationally televised interview. It is clear, he said, “that we are dealing, in general terms, with people who are associated with al-Qaida.”
After meeting with the country’s top intelligence officers, police and senior officials, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said Britain would not be cowed.
“We won’t, as the British people, be intimidated or let anyone stop us getting on with our lives,” Smith said….
Early Sunday, police arrested two people – a 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman – on a major highway in Cheshire, northern England, in a joint swoop by officers from London and Birmingham, Scotland Yard said in London. A fifth suspect was arrested in Liverpool, police there said.
Police said officers were searching a residential area about a mile from the airport. In Houston, a small town just outside Glasgow, police cordoned off the area around a two-story house to search it.
The two attacks clearly are linked, police and security officials said, noting that all three vehicles contained flammable materials – including gasoline and gas cylinders.
Britain on Saturday 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.
The new terror threat presents Brown with an enormous challenge early in his premiership – and comes at a time of already heightened vigilance one week before the anniversary of the July 7, 2005, London transit attacks. Those were largely carried out by local Muslims, exacerbating ethnic tensions in Britain.
Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s justice secretary, said the two Glasgow attackers were not “born and bred here.”
“Any suggestion to be made that they are homegrown terrorists is not true,” he said.
Meanwhile experts are saying that the bomb outside of the Tiger Tiger club wasn’t large enough to destroy a building, as previously thought, but had an effective radius of about 100 meters. This has led to speculation that the attacks are meant to either divert resources from other targets or they are psychological operations designed to spread fear and panic. From The Independent:
The London car bombers could not have destroyed the Tiger Tiger club and killed people in it, experts said last night. The huge manhunt for the would-be mass murderers by police and security services was given new urgency by an attack on Glasgow airport yesterday and the fear of further incidents.
However, it emerged that the Haymarket gas and nail bomb was almost certainly not big enough to have brought down the building, as previously reported. It would have killed and maimed within 100 metres.
Security forces have two theories. The first is that a recent crackdown stopped the terrorists getting their hands on as powerful a bomb as they would have liked. The second is that al-Qa’ida – still the most likely suspect – has changed its tactics. Instead of striking at showpiece buildings it is choosing smaller, unpredictable targets that will cause fear and panic on ordinary streets. One may, of course, have led to the other.
Police are also believed to be urgently seeking three men who went missing while under anti-terror control orders. One of them, a 26-year-old former Tube driver of Algerian descent, is alleged to have talked about wanting to blow up a nightclub. All three were previously thought to have left the country.
The Glasgow airport website is running a message warning people not sure if their flight has been canceled to err on the side of caution and not bother showing up.
Michelle Malkin is blogging up a storm on this. Jihad Watch also has some good reads.
Breit Bart’s reporting that a controlled demolition on a suspicious vehicle parked outside the hospital treating one of the Glasgow bombers was conducted this morning. Are the Jihadists afraid he’ll talk?
h/t Drudge
Update, 7/2/07, a.m.: Britain has reportedly nabbed 2 more suspects in the Glasgow attack as of Monday morning. As British officials continue their investigation at breakneck pace, Fox News is reporting that one of the men already in custody is an Iraqi-trained doctor, possibly a Jordanian. The doctor may have worked at the hospital where the burned suspect is being treated and where a second car suspicious vehicle underwent controlled detonation.
Sky News has a good timeline of events.
Fox is also reporting that ABC News has the scoop on a secret report prepared for Homeland Security that warns of a terror “spectacular” this summer. Chertoff gave the usual line about no specific credible evidence at this time.
Update, 7/2/07, p.m.: A third suspect was arrested today, bringing the total number of detainees to 8. The NY Times reports that 2 of the people arrested are doctors: Jordanian Mohammed Asha and Iraqi Bilal Abdullah. A third person under arrest may also be a doctor. Unconfirmed reports suggest two more suspects are med students, and a third, the wife of one of the doctors, worked as a medical assistant. The Independent puts forth that the terror plot may have been hatched in British hospitals. The alert level in the U.K. remains “critical.”
