By IAN STEWART, Associated Press Writer 55
minutes ago
7/1/07
GLASGOW, Scotland - Three terrorist suspects were in police
custody Sunday and a fourth man was under guard in a hospital after a flaming
jeep crashed into a Scottish airport and two car bomb plots were foiled in
central London.
Meanwhile, authorities searched several homes near
"This weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation
in the war being waged on us by Islamic terrorists," Lord Stevens,
terrorism adviser to
"Now al-Qaida has imported
the tactics of
London police said extra officers were being deployed at
landmarks, airports, train stations and bus terminals across the capital
Sunday, and had been ordered to step up the use of stop and search powers.
Armed police would patrol at major rail stations, it said.
At least 450 officers would monitor a rock concert at
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Sunday that Britons must
realize that the terrorist threat their country faces is "long-term and
sustained" and that that they must remain "constantly vigilant"
about security.
In a nationally televised interview on British Broadcasting
Corp. TV, Brown said that
The Jeep Cherokee rammed into Glasgow's airport terminal on
Saturday, shattering glass doors just yards from passengers at the check-in
counters. Police said they believed the attack was linked to two car bombs
found in
One of the men in the car was in critical condition at a
hospital with severe burns, while the other was in police custody, said
Scottish Police Chief Constable Willie Rae. Five bystanders in
Rae said a suspect device had been found on a man wrestled
to the ground by officers and hospitalized in critical condition with severe
burns.
British media said the man was wearing a suicide belt and
that police had found propane gas cylinders in the Glasgow Jeep. But police
later said an initial inspection by explosives experts had not found a suicide
vest. Rae made no mention of gas cylinders.
Police later arrested two more suspects in the
"I can confirm that we believe the incident at
Police foiled the earlier plot Friday after two cars were
found in central
A British government security official said the methods used
in the airport attack and Friday's thwarted plots were similar, with all three
vehicles carrying large quantities of flammable materials. The official spoke
on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
Police and MI5 had no specific intelligence warning of a
plan to attack
The new terror threat presents Brown, a Scot who took office
on Wednesday, with an enormous challenge and comes at a time of already
heightened vigilance one week before the anniversary of the July 7
The green Jeep barreled toward
"If he'd got through, he'd have killed hundreds,
obviously," he said.
AP photographs from the scene showed the car hit the
building at an angle and was poking into the terminal. The Jeep struck the
building directly in front of check-in counters, where dozens of passengers
were lined up, police said.
Lynsey McBean, a
witness at the terminal, said the driver kept trying to push the car forward
after it got stuck, and "the wheels were spinning and smoke was coming
from them."
She said one of the men then took out a plastic gasoline
canister and poured a liquid under the car. "He then set light to
it," said McBean, 26, from
Police subdued the driver and a passenger, both described by
witnesses as South Asian — a term used to refer to people from
Witnesses said one of the men was engulfed in flames and
spoke "gibberish" as an official used a fire extinguisher to douse
the fire.
On Sunday morning, the
Meanwhile in
The vehicles were found abandoned in the early hours of
Friday in what police believe was an attempt to kill scores or even hundreds of
people. Detectives said they were keeping an open mind about the bombers'
identities, but terrorism experts said the signs pointed to a cell linked to or
inspired by al-Qaida.
In the
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