Terror ringleader is brilliant NHS doctor

Last updated at 21:51pm on 2nd July 2007

• Controlled explosion carried out at Royal Alexandra Hospital

• Three more men arrested over Airport attack bringing total currently under arrest to seven

• Police search second house in Newcastle-under-Lyme

• Kurdish terror group is linked to London attacks

An Iraqi junior doctor and a brilliant neurologist working for the NHS are among the suspects being quizzed over the series of bomb attacks across Britain, it emerged today.

The news came as it emerged that an eighth person has been arrested in the terror enquiry.

Details of the suspects were revealed as police staged a controlled explosion at a hospital near Glasgow today.

The junior doctor has been named as Bilal Abdulla, who is said to have completed his medical training in Baghdad.

The suspected ringleader of the Al Qaeda car bombers is a brilliant neurologist working for the NHS.

Saudi Mohammed Asha, 26, was arrested with his 27-year-old wife, who was in traditional Muslim dress, on the M6 in Cheshire on Saturday night.

The development comes as a section of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley was cordoned off while a bomb disposal squad was called in.

Tonight it has been revealed that a third man, aged 26, arrested in Liverpool, was also reported to be an Indian doctor who works at Halton Hospital in Cheshire.

A colleague told the Muslim News the doctor may have been detained because he was using the mobile phone and internet account of another man who has left the UK.

In her first Commons statement since her appointment on Thursday, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "Terrorism is a serious threat to us all. We must ensure our resources, capability and legislation support our common endeavour to defend the shared values of this country from terror."

Work was proceeding on a counter-terrorism Bill due later this year.

"Terrorists are criminals, whose victims come from all walks of life, communities and religions," she added.

"Terrorists attack the values that are shared by all law-abiding citizens. As a Government, as communities, as individuals, we need to ensure that the message of the terrorists is rejected.

"I very much welcome the strong messages of condemnation we have heard throughout the weekend from community leaders across the country. My aim, as Home Secretary, is to allow the British public to live their lives as they would wish, within the law."

One of the two men who drove a blazing Jeep Cherokee into the terminal building at Glasgow airport on Saturday afternoon is also thought to be a doctor. It is believed he worked at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, four miles away.

Reports have also said that doctors' accommodations at the hospital are being searched.

Meanwhile, links between an Islamist terror group responsible for a series of bloody bombings in Iraq and the London attacks last week have emerged today.

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