Flaming car rams U.K. airport; 2 arrests By IAN STEWART, Associated Press Writer
27 minutes ago



GLASGOW, Scotland - Two men rammed a flaming sport utility vehicle into the main terminal of Glasgow airport Saturday, crashing into the glass doors at the entrance and sparking a fire, witnesses said. Police said two suspects were arrested.



The airport "” Scotland's largest "” was evacuated and all flights suspended, a day after British police thwarted a plot to bomb central London, discovering two cars abandoned with loads of gasoline, gas canisters and nails.

"One has to conclude ... these are linked," Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former head of Britain's joint intelligence committee, told Sky News. "This is a very young government, and we may yet see further attacks."

Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, who took office only Wednesday, was being briefed on developments by his officials, Downing Street said.

In Glasgow, the green SUV barreled toward the building at full speed shortly after 3 p.m., hitting security barriers before crashing into the glass doors and exploding, witnesses said. Two men jumped out of the burning vehicle, one of them engulfed in flames, they said.

"The car came speeding past at about 30 mph. It was approaching the building quickly," said Scott Leeson, who was nearby at the time. "Then the driver swerved the car around so he could ram straight in to the door. He must have been trying to smash straight through."

Two men were arrested, Strathclyde Police spokeswoman Lisa O'Neil said.

Passengers fled running and screaming from the busy terminal, Margaret Hughes told the British Broadcasting Corp. "There was black smoke gushing out where the car had obviously been driven into the airport," she said.

Flames and black smoke rose from the vehicle outside the main entrance. Police said it was unclear if anyone was injured. Other passengers were stranded, with at least one airplane grounded on the runway, the BBC said.

The incident also comes exactly one week before the second anniversary of the July 7 bombings that killed 52 people.

Leeson said bollards "” security posts outside the entrance "” stopped the driver from barreling into the bustling terminal at Glasgow's airport.

"He's trying to get through the main door frame but the bollards have stopped him from going through. If he'd got through, he'd have killed hundreds, obviously," he said.

Leeson said only the nose of the vehicle made it inside the building. Richard Grey told the BBC that the vehicle was lodged into the center of the terminal's main entrance.

"The jeep is completely on fire and it exploded not long after. It exploded at the entrance to the terminal," witness Stephen Clarkson told the BBC. "It may have been an explosion of petrol in the tank because it was not a massive explosion."

Two men "” one of them engulfed in flames "” were in the SUV, witnesses told BBC News executive Helen Boaden, who was at the airport at time. She described the men as South Asian.

Clarkson described him as a large South Asian man. "His whole body was on fire.... He was just talking gibberish," he told the BBC.

"An Asian guy had been pulled out of the car by two police officers he was trying to fight off and they'd got him on the floor," Grey told the BBC.

Boaden said police "wrestled him to the ground "” the fire was burning through his clothes "” and finally put him out with a fire extinguisher."

Lesson said an airport officials did not think the incident was an accident.

"He said the men in the car got out and started throwing petrol about "” that must be how it caught fire," he said.

Another witness, Fiona Tracey, described a "bang" coming from the SUV. The vehicle was on fire and "every now and again there was a bang coming off it. ... There was definitely a bang," she told Sky News television.

Grey said the car did not explode. "There were a few pops and bangs that seemed to be the tires and the petrol."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/britain_airport_crash

Well if you thought it was unpleasant to fly before this incident, I'll bet it will get even worse. Thank goodness nobody was killed. Once again, money will have to go towards security, and safety will take a hit.

They're saying that 2 of these men were doctors? Unbelievable.

Silence over suspect 'doctor' claims
Press Association
Monday July 2, 2007 3:53 AM


Police refused to comment on reports that at least one of the five people held over the nationwide terror alert was a doctor.

Scotland Yard also said it was not prepared to discuss suggestions that those under arrest were of varying Middle Eastern nationalities - nor a claim that another suspect was being sought.

The first two people held were detained after the terror attack on Glasgow Airport on Saturday.

Two men inside a Jeep which tried to ram the terminal building were arrested at the airport.

One, thought to be the driver, suffered severe burns after being engulfed in flames and is in a critical condition in hospital. The other, said to be 27 years old, is in custody.

Later on Saturday night anti-terror officers from the Met and West Midlands Police arrested two people, a 27-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man, on the M6 near Sandbach in Cheshire.

They are being interviewed at a central London police station, thought to be high-security Paddington Green. They are the only suspects so far brought to the capital.

A fifth arrest was made in Liverpool. Scotland Yard said a 26-year-old man was held and two properties in the area searched.

Merseyside Police confirmed that the man was stopped in the Lime Street area of the city centre. The arrest was made on behalf of Metropolitan Police Service counter-terrorism command.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6751172,00.html

Britain at maximum alert
3 failed bombings. Attempted terror attacks a trial by fire for new PM
SIKANDER HASHMI of The Gazette contributed to this report, AFP; The New York Times
Published: Monday, July 02, 2007
Britain was on maximum alert yesterday, with the government vowing to defy the "evil" of terrorism, as police raided homes and made arrests following three failed attacks in recent days.

Officers were searching properties in Glasgow, Liverpool and Newcastle-under-Lyme, having arrested five people, including one man in critical condition in a hospital with burns.

Police anti-terror chief Peter Clarke told reporters in Glasgow that the investigation was "extremely fast-moving," and added that the links between the attacks were becoming "ever clearer," after police carried out a controlled explosion on a suspect car at the hospital.


Police forensic officers look at the burned wreckage of a Jeep Cherokee as it is removed from the departure entrance at Glasgow airport on July 1.
Chris McNulty/Reuters



Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain faced the threat of Al-Qa'ida attacks after a blazing car tried to ram into Glasgow airport's main terminal Saturday following two foiled car bombings in London the day before.

In the attack, two men drove a blazing Cherokee Jeep into the main gates of Scotland's busiest air hub, triggering a fierce blaze that also took hold of the building itself.

They were overcome by onlookers and police. Both were arrested, and one of them was taken to a hospital, where he remained with severe burns.

"We will not yield, we will not be intimidated," Brown - facing a baptism of fire just days after succeeding Tony Blair - told BBC television.

"It is clear that we are dealing in general terms with people who are associated with Al-Qa'ida in a number of incidents that have happened across the world."

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who stepped into the job Thursday, refused to comment on a report that two people arrested on a highway near Liverpool overnight were the drivers of the two Mercedes cars left packed with explosives in London.

Scotland Yard confirmed, however, that a 26-year-old man and 27-year-old woman detained on the M6 highway were being questioned at a London police station.

One of the detainees was a medical doctor of Iranian-Kurdish descent, according to two people with knowledge of the police inquiry into the bombings. One of those people, and a BBC report, identified him as Mohammed Asha, 26, and The Sun newspaper said he worked at North Staffordshire hospital near the Midlands town of Newcastle-under-Lyme, where the police searched a house yesterday. The man was arrested along with a 27-year-old woman when the police pulled over a car on the M6 highway in northwest England late Saturday.

A second detainee may have been a hospital worker in Glasgow, a person with knowledge of the inquiry said. None of the five suspects are British nationals, a senior Western official said, raising a question as to who supported the group.

A spokesperson for Scotland Yard declined to comment on the reports.

Also in London, Terminal 3 of London's Heathrow airport, the world's biggest international air hub, was briefly closed late yesterday after a "suspect package" was found, an airport spokesperson said.

The spokesperson for airports operator BAA was unable to say how many flights had been disrupted, or provide details about the package itself.


Glasgow airport's main terminal reopened yesterday with limited service. Liverpool's John Lennon airport was temporarily closed Saturday night.

The government raised the security alert level to "critical" for the first time since August, and just ahead of the second anniversary of the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings on London's transport network that killed 52 commuters.

"Critical" is the highest on a five-level scale, and means another attack could be imminent.

The latest attempted attacks in London began in the early hours of Friday when two Mercedes packed with gas canisters and nails were abandoned in London's entertainment district. One was parked outside a crowded nightclub.

The second car was left nearby, but it was given a parking ticket and towed to a car impound lot. The day that the explosives were found later in the day.

In Canada, airport authorities have been asked to be "extra vigilant."

"They've been requested to pay specific attention to the movement of vehicles close to or around air terminal buildings," Transport Canada spokesperson Nicole McNeely said yesterday.

The federal agency has requested that airports limit vehicle traffic in front of the terminal buildings to the dropping off and picking up of passengers. McNeely stressed that there has been no indication of any threat against airports in Canada.

"We are monitoring the situation closely and officials from our department are in close contact and regular contact with their counterparts in the United Kingdom and in the U.S.," she said.

"We are reviewing the situation regularly and if anything needs to change, we will do that."

Flights in and out of Dorval's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport haven't been affected, but Transport Canada is encouraging travellers to check with the airline before leaving for the airport.

The United States has beefed up security at airports, while U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday that more U.S. air marshals were being deployed on flights to Britain.

A terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy airport was briefly evacuated yesterday, as authorities investigated a suspicious package, U.S. media reported.

President George W. Bush praised Brown's response to the attacks during remarks at his family residence in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he was hosting talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"It just goes to show the war against these extremists goes on," Bush said. "You never know where they might try to strike, and I appreciate the very strong response Gordon Brown's government has given to the attempts by these people."

In Paris, French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie called a meeting with security chiefs to discuss events in Britain, while UN chief Ban Ki-moon said: "No cause or belief can justify such acts of terrorism."

In Glasgow, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond denied that the incident at the airport would harm relations with Muslims in Scotland.

"As far as we can tell at the present moment, the people involved in this incident had not been in Scotland for any length of time," he told reporters.


Some eyewitness accounts of the airport attack described the two men as being of "Asian" appearance, while one witness cited by television recounted that one of them shouted "Allah, Allah" before being overcome by police.

"We have hugely strong community relations in Scotland. Our Muslim community is part of the fabric of Scottish society," Salmond said. "It's hugely important to our economy, to our social life, and these community bonds will remain strong."

And he added: "No community in Scotland should feel in any way scapegoated by this incident."

At Wimbledon, systematic checks were being conducted on all vehicles entering the car parks and on everyone coming into the tennis tournament.

Back in London, concern focused yesterday on a concert in memory of Princess Diana at Wembley Stadium, where more than 60,000 people flocked to a star-studded performance on what would have been her 46th birthday, 10 years after her death.

In an article yesterday, Brown's new security adviser, John Stevens - formerly head of Scotland Yard - warned: "Make no mistake, this weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being waged on us by Islamic militants.

"The terror of 7/7 (the 2005 attacks in London) was awful enough, but now Al-Qa'ida has imported the tactics of Baghdad and Bali to our streets," he wrote in the News of the World weekly tabloid.

"And it will get worse before it gets better."

- - -

A chronology of failed terrorist attacks in Britain over the weekend

Friday, June 29

1 a.m.: The Tiger Tiger nightclub in central London's Haymarket district calls an ambulance after a reveller falls ill. The emergency crew notices smoke coming from a green Mercedes parked outside the club.

2 a.m.: Bomb disposal experts and police find the car is filled with gas canisters and nails. The vehicle is made safe and taken from the site, while neighbouring roads and Piccadilly Circus Underground station are closed.

10:01 a.m.: Britain's new prime minister, Gordon Brown, says the plot is a reminder that Britain faces "a serious and continuous threat" and the public needs to be alert at all times. Brown holds a cabinet meeting, while Home Secretary Jacqui Smith - in her first day in the job - chairs a meeting of the COBRA emergency response committee.

Noon: The head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism unit, Peter Clarke, tells a news conference that the discovered car bomb could have caused "significant injury and loss of life."

2:59 p.m.: Police cordon off Park Lane, a plush street close to Haymarket and next to Hyde Park, following reports of a suspicious vehicle.

3:17 p.m.: Smith echoes Brown's comments about the gravity of the threat facing Britain and calls on members of the public "to remain vigilant and alert to the threat that we face at all times."

7:37 p.m.: Park Lane reopens.

8:28 p.m.: The BBC reports that a second device has been found in a car at an underground parking lot in Park Lane.


8:45 p.m.: A security source says the car, a blue Mercedes, had been found illegally parked in Haymarket and was towed by police to the underground lot.

8:52 p.m.: The police chief confirms the information given by the security source and says the two car bombs are "clearly linked."

Saturday, June 30

11 a.m.: Brown holds a brief private meeting with Scotland Yard's anti-terror unit.

Noon: COBRA meets for a second time.

1 p.m.: The Haymarket district and Piccadilly Underground station are reopened.

2:19 p.m.: Following crisis ministerial talks, Smith says the renewed terrorist threat must not stop Britons from getting on with their lives.

3:15 p.m.: A green Cherokee jeep slams into the main terminal of Glasgow Airport, Scotland's busiest, engulfing part of the building in flames.

5 p.m.: Scottish police announce they have arrested the two male occupants of the car that crashed into the airport terminal.

8:15 p.m.: Britain raises its threat level to critical, its highest, meaning an attack is expected imminently.

9:45 p.m.: Scottish police say the airport attack is being treated as linked to the foiled car bombings in London and is considered to be a terrorist incident. Scottish police evacuate a hospital after a "suspect device" is found on the man arrested at Glasgow airport. The man was being treated for severe burns.

Yesterday

12:30 a.m.: Police announce they have arrested five people in Cheshire, England, in connection with the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow.

http://tinyurl.com/2v7nhq