Posted on 07/03/2007 9:16:00 AM PDT by NCjim
Britain's terror alert took a fresh twist today as police seized gas canisters and arrested two men in a raid in Lancashire.
The development came as the first picture emerged of the doctor arrested in Australia following an intelligence tip-off from Britain.
In the raid in Blackburn, two men were arrested at an industrial estate in Blackburn on suspicion of terror offences.
Both are being held at a police station in Lancashire on suspicion of offences under the Terrorism Act 2000, but a spokesman said it is too early to confirm whether the arrests are linked to the failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.
It is thought officers swooped after two deliveries of gas canisters to the unit in Birley Street on the Furthergate industrial estate.
It is understood that a man wearing a denim jacket and light brown trousers was taken away by police in an unmarked Ford Focus while the second man, wearing a pale top and dark trousers, was driven away in a police BMW. Locals said they are not aware of what the property is used for.
The arrests came as thousands of passengers were evacuated from Heathrow's busy Terminal 4 in new terror alert after a 'suspect bag' was discovered inside.
It brought more chaos to the terminal which is British Airways' main hub as officials warned of more delays.
Airport operator BAA said they were in 'lock down mode.'
Passengers just moments from boarding were turned back from their flights after the alarm was raised at around 1pm.
Planes with passengers already on board were directed away from the terminal. All passengers inside the building were ordered to evacuate the terminal immediately as police and security services dealt with the 'suspect bag.'
"Several thousand people are now out in the car park and security staff are saying that all baggage is going to have to go through checks again," a passenger said.
A spokesman for BAA said: "In response to a suspect bag in Terminal 4, secondary searches are now being carried out on departing passengers. This will cause some delays to flights.
"Contingency plans have now been activated to ensure that we are able to effectively manage the increase in resource that this secondary search requires. We are working with the police to bring a swift resolution to the incident."
British Airways said it was monitoring the situation.
State and federal police seized Dr Mohammed Haneef at Brisbane International Airport where he was trying to board a flight to Pakistan with a one-way ticket, Attorney General Philip Ruddock said.
He added Dr Haneef, believed to be an Indian citizen, had been working as a registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital in the state of Queensland. The total number to people arrested over the bomb plan is now eight.
Dr Haneef had been based at Halton Hospital at Runcorn in 2005, near Liverpool. He answered an advert placed in the British Medical Journal in March 2006 to work in Australia, according to Queensland Premier Peter Beattie.
Meanwhile, up to 12 members of Al Qaeda were sent to work in the NHS, security sources said today.
Eight people have so far been arrested in the hunt for the car bombers who tried to cause carnage in London and Glasgow. Six of them are NHS doctors.
The scale of the infiltration by the terror network has led police to believe several members of the gang are still at large and the threat of an atrocity remains high.
According to reports, US law enforcement officials received intelligence two weeks ago which warned of a possible terror attack in Glasgow against "airport infrastructure or aircraft".
An unnamed senior official told ABC News the intelligence led to the assignment of Federal Air Marshals to flights into and out of both Glasgow and Prague in the Czech Republic.
US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declined to comment on the report, but told ABC News that "everything that we get is shared virtually instantaneously with our counterparts in Britain and vice versa".
A 27-year-old doctor has been arrested in Australia, while a second doctor is also being interviewed by Australian police.
The second man, named locally as Mohammed Asif Ali, was also being questioned but is not thought to be directly linked to the terrorist plot. Sources in Australia said the doctors were neighbours in Brisbane and lived together on Merseyside. A series of searches are also taking place across addresses in Queensland.
According to reports a 26-year-old Liverpool man arrested near the Adelphi hotel on Saturday night was also a doctor working in Halton. It is believed the two men questioned in Australia may also have worked at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, but a spokesman declined to comment.
The Muslim News reported that a colleague of the arrested Liverpool man claimed it was a case of "mistaken identity". A source said Mr Haneef was believed to have a number of "long conversations" with one of the suspects arrested in the UK in connection with the plot.
He said federal police in Australia were tipped off by Scotland Yard late on Sunday evening. It is suggested he may be confused with another associate from Halton hospital, possibly Mohammed Haneef, who left for Australia.
It was revealed the Liverpool man may have been using the mobile phone sim card and computer internet account of the former doctor.
In other developments, three controlled explosions have blown up a car linked to the Glasgow airport attack, outside a mosque in the south of the city. A controlled explosion was also carried out at Hammersmith Tube Station but no explosives were found.
The details came to light as the first pictures emerged of the chief suspect, a Jordanian-trained neurosurgeon whose family comes originally from Palestine.
Cradling his young son, Mohammed Asha, 26, is the doctor suspected of leading the terror cell behind car bombs in London and Glasgow.
He was given a standing ovation at a medical conference in London at the end of April. He was one of a group of five doctors from the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stokeon-Trent who gave a presentation at the 150th meeting of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons.
It emerged the Glasgow attack was carried out in a moment of panic after the two suspected terrorists who drove a Jeep into the airport realised police were minutes away from arresting them.
The net was closing in on junior doctor Bilal Abdulla and his companion but just minutes before the attack, a phone call to their home alerted them that police were on their way, according to sources.
As Met police officers, who had travelled to Glasgow the night before, approached their rented home in the commuter village of Houston, Renfrewshire, the men are said to have been speeding down the motorway towards Glasgow Airport to complete their mission earlier than planned.
Worryingly, many of the suspects' profiles are quite unlike those of previous suspected followers of Al Qaeda. Dr Asha appeared to be a quiet and studious university educated doctor who dreamed of becoming a leading surgeon and raising his family in England as a good Muslim.
He was married to NHS medical assistant Marwah Dana, 27, a fellow Palestinian, and doted on their son Anaf. In Jordan, his father described his arrest as 'beyond belief'.
In Jordan, his father described his arrest as 'beyond belief'.
Another doctor being held was named as Iraqi Bilal Abdul Samad Abdulla, one of the men who drove a blazing Jeep into the doorway of Glasgow Airport on Saturday.
He was trained in Baghdad and had been in Britain less than a year, working at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, near the airport.
The second man in the Jeep also worked at the hospital, where he is now being treated under armed guard for massive burns.
Sources in Glasgow said the two men were believed to have been the drivers who parked two huge car bombs in the West End of London in the early hours of Friday. One was outside the Tiger Tiger night club in the Haymarket.
They were designed to be detonated by a mobile phone call, but the terrorists' attempts to do so failed.
It's been claimed the gas canisters used in the bomb were bought from a branch of B&Q. Sources revealed that the propane canisters, sold for £29.95, were believed to have been purchased from the Paisley B&Q. A spokeswoman for the DIY chain said the store requires the name of the person hiring a cylinder before they can take it away.
Staff at the Royal Alexandra Hospital said Abdulla had been spending an increasing amount of time logged on to Arabic websites when he should have been working.
Accommodation linked to the hospital was sealed off and searched yesterday and three more controlled explosions were carried out by bomb disposal officers.
Two of the men arrested yesterday, aged 28 and 25, were held near to the hospital.
Both are trainee doctors from the Saudi Arabia.
Dr Asha, who had been working at the North Staffordshire Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent, was arrested with his wife on the M6 motorway on Saturday.
They are among the suspects being questioned at Paddington Green police station in West London.
A fifth doctor, a 26-year-old from Bangalore, India, washeld in Liverpool. He was reported to have been working at Halton Hospital in Cheshire.
Security and intelligence officials fear the terror attacks have exposed a loophole, with no official security vetting currently necessary for doctors and medical staff coming to Britain from the Middle East.
Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that there is a second cell of NHS-linked bombers.
Of the 240,000 or so doctors currently registered here, more than 6,000 originally qualified in the Middle East.
Almost a third – 1,985 – were trained in Iraq and another 184 came from Jordan.
There were also significant numbers from Syria (748), Sudan (565) and Iran (488) – all countries linked to extremism.
Security officials stress that the vast majority of these doctors are dedicated staff whose presence benefits Britain.
But they say the profession could provide cover for a radical few.
A security source said: "We are desperately trying to find out whether they were radicalised here or overseas.
"We are trying to find out the common denominator, how they know each other. Did they attend the same course or medical college?
"It is an extremely worrying development to have well-educated people bent on causing mass murder.
"At the end of the day, the number of doctors involved could easily stretch into double figures."
Two of the suspects had previously come to the attention of MI5 in connection with terror inquiries.
They were regarded as 'low priority', however, and sources said there was no reason to suspect they were planning atrocities.
M15 is currently monitoring 30 terror plots involving more than 1,000 people.
A source said: 'The security services are stretched to the absolute limit. Suspects are continually being risk assessed but nobody arrested over this latest plot had come up as being high priority.'
Extensive searches continued yesterday at addresses linked to three hospitals as well as homes in Glasgow and Merseyside and Dr Asha's rented house in Newcastle-under- Lyme.
Police were said to be hunting two other prominent members of the car bomb cell as well as a number of 'support players' who provided logistical help.
Investigators are also following up what was said to be a 'wealth of intelligence' gleaned from mobile telephones.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told the Commons yesterday that 19 addresses have now been searched as part of the fast-moving inquiry.
She said: "It is through our unity that the terrorists will eventually be defeated.
"The fact that people have been prepared to go about their lives as normally as possible this weekend sends the strongest message to those who wish to destroy our way of life and our freedoms that we will not be intimidated by terror."
The UK remains on a 'critical' state of terror alert – the highest possible – meaning another attack is believed to be imminent.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown held talks with senior ministers yesterday and the emergency Cobra committee met.
Commuters and holidaymakers have been warned to expect further delays on journeys today as a result of increased security.
Extra police patrols and vehicle searches are taking place at airports and transport hubs, including major railway stations.
In the U.S., officials said they had issued a warning that Al Qaeda was planning a 'spectacular' attack this summer after intercepting 'electronic chatter' similar to that which preceded the 9/11 suicide hijackings.
Thanks. Was waiting for the update on this story.
ping
If your local hospital has a website, pay a visit and check out the physicians list. Some of the names may interest you.
Bump.
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