Day of Drama As Nationwide Hunt for Bombers Swings into Action ; TERROR ATTACKS

Jul 02, 01:57 AM

Current Headlines: By Kim Sengupta; Colin Brown

Police carried out a series of raids and made a number of arrests across the country yesterday, while a car was blown up in a hospital car park during a day of dramatic developments after the terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow.

A controlled explosion was carried out at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, where one of two men arrested at Glasgow airport, critically injured from his burns, was receiving medical treatment under armed police guard. Police said the vehicle was linked to the attack at the airport, where a burning Jeep was driven into the terminal on Saturday afternoon, as well as to addresses being searched near Glasgow.

The police and the security services stated that the incidents in London and Glasgow were linked and that some members of the group that had carried them out remain free.

The man receiving treatment at the Royal Alexandra Hospital was the driver of the Jeep. Also under arrest is his 27-year-old companion.

Yesterday, raids took place in the town of Houston, in Renfrewshire, in the aftermath of the Glasgow attack. According to local reports, an insular group of people had moved into the area about six weeks ago. Police officers wearing white overalls were seen coming in and out of a semidetached house in the town six miles west of Glasgow.

South of the border, a 27-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man were arrested on the M6 motorway in Cheshire. A 26-year-old man was also arrested in Liverpool, while raids were also carried out in NewcastleUnder-Lyme, Staffordshire. All three are being held at Paddington Green police station in London. Three of the five people arrested are believed to be foreign nationals. And two of the five were reported to be hospital doctors.

As the hunt for the terrorist cell spread, the national security alert was raised to the highest possible state of "critical".

Gordon Brown said there would be intensive police checks at airports, pubs and clubs and on the roads for the foreseeable future. The Prime Minister added it was "clear" that the attacks had been perpetrated by associates of al-Qa'ida.

Liverpool's John Lennon airport had been closed overnight on Saturday following a terrorist alert there. Glasgow airport was reopened yesterday, with about 20 flights cancelled. Stricter security checks have been brought into other airports across Britain.

At a press conference in Glasgow, where the registration number of the green Jeep Cherokee used in the airport attack - L808 RDT - was issued, Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, said: "I am confident - absolutely confident - that in the coming days and weeks we will be able to gain a thorough understanding of the methods used by the terrorists, of the way in which they planned their attacks, and the network to which they belong."

But the former Scotland Yard commissioner Lord Stevens, who will soon take over as the Prime Minister's security adviser, said: "The terror of 7/7 was awful enough, but now al-Qa'ida has imported the tactics of Baghdad and Bali to the streets of the UK. And it will get worse before it gets better ... There is growing suspicion that al-Qa'ida operatives - possibly British-born - have returned from Iraq as well as Afghanistan to guide, direct and influence groups here."

The swift police reaction resulted from examinations of the two cars recovered in London on Friday. Security sources described the two Mercedes limousines, one outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket and the other at nearby Cockspur Street, as "hugely useful". Instead of piecing together debris after a blast, specialists at a military forensic explosives laboratory in Kent have been working with intact vehicles "which have been taxed, whose histories can be traced and which contained mobile telephones and fingerprints". The two cars had also been parked in an area with one of the highest concentrations of CCTVs in the country.

Portrait of a botched campaign emerges

What are the links between the incidents in London and Glasgow?

The police and the security services say the same group was responsible and there are marked similarities to what was found in the two Mercedes cars in London and the Jeep driven into Glasgow airport.

How were the London bombs to be detonated?

The cars were packed with gas cylinders, petrol and with two mobile telephones, one acting as a back-up, as detonators. The two cars in London also had nails packed in with their bombs. Propane gas canisters were opened to fill the first car, outside Tiger Tiger, with gas. This would have been detonated, exploding compressed gas in the cylinders at 20,000 feet per second, creating a fireball from the 200 litres of petrol and spewing out nails for 100 feet.

Was this method similar to those used in Iraq?

Vehicle bombs in Iraq have used petrol, but are more typically packed with high explosives.

Was there advance intelligence of such attacks?

There have been reports in the American media that US authorities had such a warning. Privately, British security sources are sceptical of some of the accounts from across the Atlantic.

Who are the people behind the attacks?

Almost certainly Islamist extremists. It is said members of the group, believed to include foreign nationals, had moved to the Glasgow area in the past six weeks.

Are more such attacks likely?

The current state of alert is at its highest. This does not mean such an attack is inevitable, but that the security and intelligence services have information pointing towards another terrorist operation being planned.

How the investigation unfolded

Hunt for bombers yields five arrests as searches continue

Glasgow

Police appeal for information about the Jeep, reg no L808 RDT, involved in the Glasgow airport attack. At Royal Alexandra Hospital, where one of the suspects is critical, a car was blown up by the bomb squad in controlled explosion. Searches continuing at addresses in Renfrewshire

London

London car bomb link to Glasgow attack confirmed by police. Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke says he is "absolutely confident" of uncovering details of the attackers' methods and network

Merseyside, Cheshire and Staffordshire

Police last night continued searches of addresses in Newcastle- under-Lyme and Liverpool, following arrest of a 26-year-old man in Liverpool and a man, 26, and woman, 27, on the M6 in Cheshire

(c) 2007 Independent, The; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.