Posted on 07/03/2007 10:56:28 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
GLASGOW, Scotland - The fast-moving investigation into failed car bombings in Glasgow and London has swept up at least five physicians and a medical student, officials said Tuesday, including a doctor seized at an Australian airport with a one-way ticket.
Many of the men had roots outside Britain — with ties to Iraq, Jordan and India — and worked together at hospitals in Scotland or England, officials said.
None of the plotters arrested so far is named on U.S. terror watch lists that identify potential suspects, according to a senior American counterterror official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
British Broadcasting Corp. and Sky News identified a suspect badly burned in the failed attack on Glasgow airport as Khalid Ahmed, also a doctor. Police declined to confirm the identity, but have said the injured man was the driver of the Jeep that rammed the Scottish airport. He is hospitalized under armed guard.
One of the doctors from India, 27-year-old Muhammad Haneef, was arrested late Monday at the international airport in the Australian city of Brisbane, the Australian attorney general said.
Haneef worked in 2005 at Halton Hospital in England, hospital spokesman Mark Shone said. A 26-year-old man arrested Saturday in Liverpool also practiced there, Shone said.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said Haneef was being held under counterterrorism laws that allow him to be detained without charges being immediately filed.
"The doctor was regarded by the hospital as, in many senses, a model citizen — excellent references and so on," said Queensland Premier Peter Beattie.
Police in Glasgow said two more men — aged 25 and 28 — were arrested Sunday in residences at Glasgow's Royal Alexandra Hospital, where staff identified them as a junior doctor and a medical student.
Amid increased security at British airports, train stations and on city streets, two men attempting to buy gas canisters at an industrial estate were arrested in Blackburn, northern England, under anti-terrorism laws. Police said it was too early to determine if the men were linked to the London and Glasgow attacks.
British-born terrorists behind the bloody 2005 London transit bombings and others in thwarted plots here were linked to terror training camps and foreign radicals in Pakistan.
Authorities said police searched at least 19 locations at a time of already high vigilance before the anniversary of the suicide bombings in London that killed 52 people on July 7, 2005.
In the latest attacks, two car bombs failed to explode in central London on Friday, and two men rammed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas cylinders into the entrance of Glasgow International Airport and then set it on fire Saturday.
The British government security official said investigators were working on one theory that the same people may have driven the explosives-laden cars into London and the blazing SUV in Glasgow.
Bomb experts carried out a second controlled explosion on a car at the Royal Alexandra Hospital hospital Monday, after a similar blast Sunday. Police said the car was linked to the investigation, but no explosives were found.
Authorities identified Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi doctor who worked at the Glasgow hospital, as the other man arrested at the airport.
A man arrested late Saturday on a highway in central England was also a physician, Mohammed Jamil Abdelqader Asha, police said. A Jordanian official said Asha was of Palestinian descent and carried a Jordanian passport.
Azmi Mahafzah, Asha's instructor at the University of Jordan medical school, said he knew Asha during his studies and training from 1998 to 2004.
"I didn't even have the impression that he was religious," he told The Associated Press. "He is not a fanatic type of person."
The family of Asha's wife, Marwa, who British authorities said was also arrested, denied she had links to terrorism.
"Marwa is a very educated person and she read many British novels to know England better, a country she liked so much," her father, Yunis Da'na, told The Associated Press in Jordan.
Police were also investigating an attack on an Asian news agent early Tuesday in Glasgow, in which a car was rammed into the shop and caught fire or set ablaze, and the torching of a real estate office next to a mosque near Edinburgh on Monday.
Officers have yet to establish if either attack was racially motivated, but Osama Saeed, the Muslim Association of Britain's Scottish spokesman, said tension was increasing.
___
Associated Press Writers Rob Harris in Runcorn, England, David Stringer in London, Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington, and Shafika Mattar and Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
None of the plotters arrested so far is named on U.S. terror watch lists that identify potential suspects, according to a senior American counterterror official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
If this is their idea of "profiling", I'd have to say that they're doing it wrong.
Yeah - a muslim jihadist treating an infidel. How about some AIDS with that injection?
I guess the point here is that it’s not Muslims who are terrorists, but rather physicians.
The Quran gives Muslims permission to lie to infidels if the lie is in the cause of advancing Islam. The Quran also says that "Peace" is defined as when Islam rules the world. Finally, "tolerance" is defined as allowing infidels to live....in a state of dhimmini - or diminished status!
Can't trust them....any of them!!
BBC Report:
Steve Emerson: The Doctor Brigade sleeper cells
And if I remember right, the kind of socialist/fascist medical care Ahrnold wanted to bring to Kalifornia also had REQUIREMENTS for citizens to get checkups and make regular visits. That was under the guise of "using preventative medicine to lower costs". Wonder if these requirements are also part of the UK socialist/fascist medical care system ? Imagine that, you could be arrested and jailed for not making you regular visit to your assigned Islamic doctor !
Sounds like Hitler is running Europe again. This time he wears a Nazi Crescent instead of a Nazi Cross.
Diverse group allegedly in British plot
By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer
LONDON - They had diverse backgrounds, coming from countries around the globe, but all shared youth and worked in medicine. They also had a common goal, authorities suspect: to bring havoc and death to the heart of Britain.
The eight people held Tuesday in the failed car bombing plot include one doctor from Iraq and two from India. There is a physician from Lebanon and a Jordanian doctor and his medical assistant wife. Another doctor and a medical student are thought to be from the Middle East.
All employees of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, some worked together as colleagues at hospitals in England and Scotland, and experts and officials say the evidence points to the plot being hatched after they met in Britain, rather than overseas.
“To think that these guys were a sleeper cell and somehow were able to plan this operation from the different places they were, and then orchestrate being hired by the NHS so they could get to the UK, then get jobs in the same area — I think that’s a planning impossibility,” said Bob Ayres, a former U.S. intelligence officer now at London’s Chatham House think tank.
“A much more likely scenario is they were here together, they discovered that they shared some common ideology, and then they decided to act on this while here in the UK,” he said.
No one has been charged in the plot in which two car bombs failed to explode in central London early Friday and two men rammed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas cylinders into the entrance of Glasgow International Airport and set it on fire the following day.
Investigators believe the main plotters have been rounded up, including one in custody in Australia, though others involved on the periphery, including at least one British-born suspect, were still being hunted, a British government security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the details.
British-born Muslims behind the bloody 2005 London transit bombings and others in thwarted plots here have been linked to terror training camps and foreign radicals in Pakistan, and the official said Pakistan, India and several other nations were asked to check possible links with the suspects in the latest attacks.
The educational achievements of the suspects in the car bomb attempts is in sharp contrast to the men that carried out the deadly July 7 transit bombings two years ago. The ringleader of that attack, Mohammed Siddique Khan, had a degree in business studies, but with low marks, and his three fellow suicide bombers had little or no higher education.
In the current case, Muhammad Haneef, a 27-year-old doctor from India arrested late Monday in Brisbane, Australia, worked in 2005 at Halton Hospital near Liverpool in northern England, hospital spokesman Mark Shone said.
Another Indian doctor, 26, arrested late Saturday in Liverpool, worked at the same hospital, Shone confirmed, but refused to divulge his name.
A third suspect, Mohammed Jamil Asha, a 26-year-old doctor from Jordan of Palestinian heritage, was arrested Saturday with his wife, Marwa Asha, 27, who was identified in British media reports as a medical assistant. He worked at North Staffordshire Hospital, near the Midlands town of Newcastle-under-Lyme.
A doctor at Royal Alexandra Hospital in Glasgow, who refused to give his name, said he recognized Asha as a doctor who kept an office there — the same hospital where another suspect, Bilal Talal Abdul Samad Abdulla, worked.
According to friends of Abdulla’s family in Iraq, the 27-year-old doctor came to Britain after graduating from medical school in Baghdad. He was a passenger in the Jeep Cherokee that rammed into the Glasgow airport.
The Jeep’s driver — identified by staff at Royal Alexandra Hospital as a Lebanese doctor named Khalid Ahmed — was in critical condition at that hospital from burns suffered in the attack. Police would not confirm his identity.
Investigators believe the same men who parked the explosives-laden cars in London may have also driven the blazing SUV in Glasgow, the British security official said.
The final two suspects, ages 25 and 28, were arrested by police Sunday at Royal Alexandra Hospital. Staff said one was a medical student and the other a junior doctor, without giving their names. British media said they were from Saudi Arabia, but police refused to comment.
Dr. Shiv Panbe, former chairman of the British International Doctors Association, said the two Indian nationals in custody were Muslims.
“It is very upsetting news,” Panbe said of their alleged involvement. “It is an abuse of trust and respect — everyone should be able to love their doctor.”
Azmi Mahafzah, a teacher at the University of Jordan’s medical school, said he knew the suspect Asha during his studies and training there in 1998-2004. He said he didn’t think Asha was religious. “He is not a fanatic type of person,” Mahafzah said.
Asha’s family also denied he was a militant or had links to terrorism, as did the family of Asha’s wife, Marwa.
“Marwa is a very educated person and she read many British novels to know England better, a country she liked so much,” her father, Yunis Da’na, told The Associated Press in Jordan.
British authorities have refused to release many details on the suspects, including whether they were on any watch lists, but have indicated they believe the plot may have links to al-Qaida.
A senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Tuesday that none of the eight suspects was on any American lists that identify potential terror suspects.
One news report suggested the group could have been recruited by the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, but the British security official said that was “unlikely.” He said the investigation was not focusing on Iraqi links, other than the fact that one suspect was from Iraq.
Patrick Mercer, a legislator in the opposition Conservative Party who is a former British army intelligence officer, said he doubted the plotters came to Britain already planning the attack.
“I think these people came into the country, possibly already radicalized or certainly sympathetic ... and the process of radicalization has been completed while they’re here. My inclination is to say that these are intelligent and highly motivated people, so the probability of self-radicalization is higher,” he told the AP.
Ayres, the American security expert, said he doubted the group had “direct contact” with an outside group like al-Qaida, saying they would not have needed any serious training for the plot that was carried out. “The attack vector that they used wasn’t very sophisticated,” he said.
But Mercer said from what he had heard from his sources, the plotters did attempt a complex assault. He said the first car bomb outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub was intended to draw people out from other pubs and nightspots, when the second bomb was to be exploded.
“It’s not the most sophisticated attack on earth, but I would suggest it’s not something by a bunch of medical students — there’s military thinking behind this — so there will have been, I’m pretty sure, a guiding hand,” Mercer said.
That is exactly what investigators are still trying to piece together, the security official said.
“When did they first meet? Did they meet in Britain or overseas? Were they sent here? Is there an actual al-Qaida link? They are questions we’re looking for answers to,” the official said.
___
Associated Press writers Rob Harris in Runcorn, England; David Stringer in London; Ben McConville, in Glasgow, Scotland; Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington; and Shafika Mattar and Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070703/ap_on_re_eu/britain_terrorism;_ylt=AtkBKk4wGhHOwel6vZJLVtOs0NUE
They had diverse backgrounds, coming from countries around the globe, but all shared youth and worked in medicine...
Muhammad Haneef, a 27-year-old muslim doctor from India ...
Another Indian doctor age 26, also a muslim...
Mohammed Jamil Asha, a 26-year-old doctor from Jordan of Palestinian heritage...
his wife Marwa Asha...
Bilal Talal Abdul Samad Abdulla, from Iraq...
a Lebanese doctor named Khalid Ahmed...
Two unnamed suspects of Saudi Arabian origin...
Hmm. Very diverse group. Seem to have almost nothing in common, eh?
Impossible or just beyond your comprehension ? They behaved like a sleeper cell by hiding their strong religious convictions from their associates. Suicidal religious zealots have strong religious convictions. Therefore, it HAD to be a sleeper cell. When is the west going to wake up ?
3 July 2007 17:35
Police worker admits leaking terror report
Published: 18 June 2007
A civilian police employee today admitted misconduct in a public office by leaking an intelligence report on terrorism to a newspaper.
Thomas Lund-Lack, 59, was working in Scotland Yard’s Special Operations section in the Counter Terrorism Command when he disclosed documents to a journalist.
Today he admitted misconduct in public office when he appeared at the Old Bailey. The leaked report formed the basis for a Sunday Times article published on April 22.
It warned that al Qaida leaders in Iraq, backed by supporters in Iran, were planning large-scale attacks on Britain and the West, according to the paper.
One operative was said to have warned that he was planning an attack “ on a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki” in an attempt to “shake the Roman throne”, a reference to the West.
Another feared plot could be timed to coincide with the stepping down of Prime Minister Tony Blair, or what al Qaida planners called a “change in the head of the company”, according to the newspaper.
The intelligence report was produced in April and made clear that senior figures from the terror network had been in recent contact with operatives in Britain, the Sunday Times said.
Continued at link...
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2671032.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6267194.stm
“The lawyers, the engineers, the doctors and the students who once led the struggle for national liberation against colonial powers are again the standard-bearers of a movement that claims to have a cure for all the ills of their societies.
However, some Islamists are more ambitious and believe that their “Islamic utopia” is not only an answer to the problems of their own societies, but for the entire world, including the “decadent West”.
Ironically, their global ambition has become all the more visible because of the very global forces they wish to vanquish, including of course America’s global “war on terror”.
(Now there’s an analysis that’s far too intellectual for me to grasp.)
Mohammed Asha: Surgeon 'who turned radical'
Um Abed, the mother of Marwah, 27, said: "We are stunned. Mohammed and Marwah are not the type to be interested in political Islam."
They said the plight of Asha's people in the West Bank would not have turned him to terror.
But one friend of Asha, 26, claimed last night that the doctor came under the spell of radical Islamists after moving to Britain.
The friend, who asked not to be named, said: "I saw him in the summer of 2006 on a visit to Jordan.
"He seemed really influenced by Islamist ideologies in Britain, even physically he looked different with a long beard, looking like an Islamist extremist." A 'Mohammed Asha' has also been recorded writing on the Internet in vitriolic terms about Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Mohammed Haneef:
He had a one-way ticket to India and had not booked any time off with his hospital superiors.
Haneef was arrested after police traced calls between his phone and that of at least one of the other bomb plot suspects. The pair are said to have had lengthy conversations.
But staff were surprised when he suddenly announced he was rushing off to India to be with his wife Firdous Arshiya and their baby.
"He said he was going home for seven to 10 days," said one doctor.
"But he was rostered to be working this week and he had not booked any holidays between June 4 and August 10. He didn't mention anything to me about the leave so maybe it was a quick decision to go to India."
Bilal Abdulla : Mystery man 'who hated the West's crusade'
To his hospital colleagues, Bilal Abdulla was a mystery man who seemed to lack interest in being a doctor.
His devotion to Islam always came first and he would disappear for long periods during the working day to pray or to log on to Arabic websites.
He told fellow staff nothing of his previous life in Iraq, claiming instead that he was Jordanian.
But yesterday suspicions were growing that he had direct links to Al Qaeda and had formed a terror cell inside the NHS.
Shiraz Maher, who knows the doctor well, told Sky News: "He was very angry about the West, particularly Britain and America and the invasion of Iraq.
"He saw it as the classic idea of a crusader war engineered by the West to impose Western views on an Islamic country.'
It was claimed yesterday that Abdulla was recruited by Al Qaeda in Iraq and ordered to travel to Britain.
Abdulla, who studied medicine in Baghdad, came from a family of Wahabist Muslims, an ultraconservative form of Islam that promotes Sharia law.
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