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5 Arrested in Connection With London, Scotland Terror Incidents
Sunday, July 01, 2007
GLASGOW, Scotland - A fifth person was arrested Sunday in connection with a
fiery attack on a Scottish airport terminal and a foiled car bomb plot in
London, as police searched homes near Glasgow International Airport on
Sunday in connection with the terrorist incidents.
FOX confirmed that a third person was arrested in Liverpool as part of an
ongoing terrorism sweep following the terrorist incidents on Friday and
Saturday.
Two men involved in the Glasgow attacks were in police custody Sunday, one
of them under guard in the hospital after being engulfed in flames when the
Jeep crashed into the airport. Early Sunday, police arrested two others on a
major highway in Cheshire, northern England, in a joint swoop by officers
from London and Birmingham, Scotland Yard said in London.
In a nationally televised interview, Britain's new prime minister, Gordon
Brown, said the country clearly was dealing with terrorists associated with
Al Qaeda. And Lord Stevens, Brown's new terrorism adviser, said the two
attacks in Britain indicate that "Al Qaeda has imported the tactics of
Baghdad and Bali to the streets of the U.K."
On Friday, police thwarted an apparent plot to set off a coordinated bomb
attack in central London when an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a
Mercedes found rigged with explosives. They found a second Mercedes filled
with explosives hours later.
And on Saturday, two men rammed a flaming Jeep into the main entrance of
Glasgow airport, shattering the glass doors and sparking a raging fire just
feet from people lined up at check-in counters on the first day of summer
vacation for Glaswegian schoolchildren.
Police said officers were searching a residential area about 7 miles west of
central Glasgow - an area about a mile from the airport. In Houston, a small
town just outside Glasgow, police were cordoning off the area around a
two-story house to prepare to search it.
"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 statement.
The two attacks clearly are linked, police and security officials said,
noting that all three vehicles contained large amounts of flammable
materials - including gasoline and gas cylinders.
Britain raised its security alert level to "critical" - the highest possible
level, indicating terror attacks may be imminent as the attacks raised fears
that the type of car bomb attacks now commonplace in Iraq has now reached
European shores.
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.
Brown, who replaced Tony Blair as prime minister just days earlier, said
Britons must realize that the terrorist threat Britain faces is "long-term
and sustained," urging them to remain "constantly vigilant" about security.
"We will not yield, we will not be intimidated, and we will not allow anyone
to undermine our British way of life," he told the British Broadcasting
Corp. in a TV interview.
He said: "Everything is being done in our power ... to protect people's
lives."
Lord Stevens, London's former police chief, called it a major escalation in
the campaign waged by Islamic militants.
"This weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being
waged on us by Islamic terrorists," he wrote in a column in Sunday's News of
the World newspaper.
He said the terrorists are using "the same technology, the same bomb-making
techniques, the same operating methods as their brothers-in-arms in both
Baghdad and Bali," the Indonesian resort town targeted several years ago.
Glasgow police chief Willie Rae said a suspicious device was found on a man
wrestled to the ground by officers at Glasgow airport and hospitalized in
critical condition with severe burns.
"There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being
treated as a terrorist incident," Rae said.
British media said the man was wearing a suicide belt and that police had
found propane gas cylinders in the vehicle in Glasgow. But police later said
an initial inspection by explosives experts had not found a suicide vest.
Rae made no mention of gas cylinders.
By Sunday morning, the Glasgow airport was reopened to flights and to
travelers who entered the terminal through a police cordon.
John Lennon Airport, in the northwestern city of Liverpool, also was closed
overnight after a suspicious vehicle was found nearby. The vehicle was taken
away for forensic examination and the airport reopened at 4:40 a.m., police
said.
Officers also were reviewing closed-circuit television footage in the search
for clues into the foiled bombings. Detectives said they were keeping an
open mind about who the bombers were, but terrorism experts said the signs
pointed to a cell linked to or inspired by Al Qaeda.
Police did not say whether the SUV that struck Glasgow airport was carrying
explosives, but one witness reported seeing a gas canister in the vehicle.
Witness Lynsey McBean said one of the men took out a plastic gasoline
canister, poured a liquid under the car and then set light to it.
"They were obviously trying to get it further inside the airport as the
wheels were spinning and smoke was coming from them," she said.
The incident hinted of a foiled December 1999 plot to attack Los Angeles
International Airport. Customs agents stopped a man in a car packed with 124
pounds of explosives. He is serving a 22-year prison sentence for the plot.
And last year, a 35-year-old British convert to Islam was convicted of
plotting to bomb several U.S. financial targets and luxury London hotels
with a plot that called for using limousines packed with gas tanks, napalm
and nails.
In April, accused members of an Al-Qaeda-linked terror cell were convicted
of conspiring to blow up the Ministry of Sound nightclub, one of London's
biggest music venues.
5 Arrested in Connection With London, Scotland Terror Incidents
Sunday, July 01, 2007
GLASGOW, Scotland - A fifth person was arrested Sunday in connection with a
fiery attack on a Scottish airport terminal and a foiled car bomb plot in
London, as police searched homes near Glasgow International Airport on
Sunday in connection with the terrorist incidents.
FOX confirmed that a third person was arrested in Liverpool as part of an
ongoing terrorism sweep following the terrorist incidents on Friday and
Saturday.
Two men involved in the Glasgow attacks were in police custody Sunday, one
of them under guard in the hospital after being engulfed in flames when the
Jeep crashed into the airport. Early Sunday, police arrested two others on a
major highway in Cheshire, northern England, in a joint swoop by officers
from London and Birmingham, Scotland Yard said in London.
In a nationally televised interview, Britain's new prime minister, Gordon
Brown, said the country clearly was dealing with terrorists associated with
Al Qaeda. And Lord Stevens, Brown's new terrorism adviser, said the two
attacks in Britain indicate that "Al Qaeda has imported the tactics of
Baghdad and Bali to the streets of the U.K."
On Friday, police thwarted an apparent plot to set off a coordinated bomb
attack in central London when an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a
Mercedes found rigged with explosives. They found a second Mercedes filled
with explosives hours later.
And on Saturday, two men rammed a flaming Jeep into the main entrance of
Glasgow airport, shattering the glass doors and sparking a raging fire just
feet from people lined up at check-in counters on the first day of summer
vacation for Glaswegian schoolchildren.
Police said officers were searching a residential area about 7 miles west of
central Glasgow - an area about a mile from the airport. In Houston, a small
town just outside Glasgow, police were cordoning off the area around a
two-story house to prepare to search it.
"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 statement.
The two attacks clearly are linked, police and security officials said,
noting that all three vehicles contained large amounts of flammable
materials - including gasoline and gas cylinders.
Britain raised its security alert level to "critical" - the highest possible
level, indicating terror attacks may be imminent as the attacks raised fears
that the type of car bomb attacks now commonplace in Iraq has now reached
European shores.
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.
Brown, who replaced Tony Blair as prime minister just days earlier, said
Britons must realize that the terrorist threat Britain faces is "long-term
and sustained," urging them to remain "constantly vigilant" about security.
"We will not yield, we will not be intimidated, and we will not allow anyone
to undermine our British way of life," he told the British Broadcasting
Corp. in a TV interview.
He said: "Everything is being done in our power ... to protect people's
lives."
Lord Stevens, London's former police chief, called it a major escalation in
the campaign waged by Islamic militants.
"This weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being
waged on us by Islamic terrorists," he wrote in a column in Sunday's News of
the World newspaper.
He said the terrorists are using "the same technology, the same bomb-making
techniques, the same operating methods as their brothers-in-arms in both
Baghdad and Bali," the Indonesian resort town targeted several years ago.
Glasgow police chief Willie Rae said a suspicious device was found on a man
wrestled to the ground by officers at Glasgow airport and hospitalized in
critical condition with severe burns.
"There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being
treated as a terrorist incident," Rae said.
British media said the man was wearing a suicide belt and that police had
found propane gas cylinders in the vehicle in Glasgow. But police later said
an initial inspection by explosives experts had not found a suicide vest.
Rae made no mention of gas cylinders.
By Sunday morning, the Glasgow airport was reopened to flights and to
travelers who entered the terminal through a police cordon.
John Lennon Airport, in the northwestern city of Liverpool, also was closed
overnight after a suspicious vehicle was found nearby. The vehicle was taken
away for forensic examination and the airport reopened at 4:40 a.m., police
said.
Officers also were reviewing closed-circuit television footage in the search
for clues into the foiled bombings. Detectives said they were keeping an
open mind about who the bombers were, but terrorism experts said the signs
pointed to a cell linked to or inspired by Al Qaeda.
Police did not say whether the SUV that struck Glasgow airport was carrying
explosives, but one witness reported seeing a gas canister in the vehicle.
Witness Lynsey McBean said one of the men took out a plastic gasoline
canister, poured a liquid under the car and then set light to it.
"They were obviously trying to get it further inside the airport as the
wheels were spinning and smoke was coming from them," she said.
The incident hinted of a foiled December 1999 plot to attack Los Angeles
International Airport. Customs agents stopped a man in a car packed with 124
pounds of explosives. He is serving a 22-year prison sentence for the plot.
And last year, a 35-year-old British convert to Islam was convicted of
plotting to bomb several U.S. financial targets and luxury London hotels
with a plot that called for using limousines packed with gas tanks, napalm
and nails.
In April, accused members of an Al-Qaeda-linked terror cell were convicted
of conspiring to blow up the Ministry of Sound nightclub, one of London's
biggest music venues.
