PAISLEY, Scotland—British police held seven people on Monday, after two overnight arrests in their pursuit of a suspected al Qaeda cell which rammed a fuel-packed jeep into a Scottish airport and left two car bombs in London.
Two of those detained were confirmed to be doctors, one of whom qualified in Iraq and the other in Jordan.
The Iraqi-trained doctor was named by police sources as Bilal Abdulla, who worked at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in the Scottish town of Paisley, and the Jordanian as Mohammed Asha. Asha's wife has also been arrested.
Housing blocks at the hospital, near Glasgow where the airport was attacked on Saturday, were cordoned off by police and two controlled detonations were carried out there on Monday as authorities stayed on high alert.
Fearing further attacks, police banned cars and other vehicles from directly approaching airports and security measures were stepped up across the country as authorities kept the threat level at "critical", the highest rating.
A police source said the investigation was going very well and they expected to make more arrests. The source said the plot bore "all the hallmarks" of al Qaeda and there had been no warning of Saturday's attack on Glasgow airport.
That attack, and the car bombs left in London on Friday, pose a tough test for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who last week replaced Tony Blair.
In 2005, Britain was the first country in Western Europe to be hit by Islamist suicide bombers and since then several plots have been foiled.
Blair was known for an aggressive stance on security and a foreign policy which strongly supported the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. The home-grown bombers who struck London transport two years ago, killing 52 commuters, said in videos they were punishing Britain for Blair's policies.
The latest arrests, made on Sunday in Paisley, involved two men, 25 and 28, who were not believed to be of Scottish origin.
A British security source said it was premature to say whether all those arrested were foreigners. "That's still an area that's being looked at."
Fireball
Home Secretary (interior minister) Jacqui Smith said Britain was facing a "serious and sustained threat of terrorism" and urged the public to remain alert. Addressing parliament on Monday, she praised the security services for their quick work in rounding up suspects but said a threat remained.
On Saturday, police arrested the passenger and badly burned driver of a Jeep Cherokee who had rammed the vehicle into the entrance of Glasgow's airport, causing a huge fireball.
The attack came 36 hours after police in London defused two Mercedes car bombs packed with fuel canisters, propane tanks and nails, parked in the heart of the capital's bustling theatre and nightclub district.
The other arrests included a 26-year-old man seized in Liverpool on Sunday and Mohammed Asha and his wife, who were detained on a motorway in northern England on Saturday. All three were taken to London for questioning and police were given permission to hold them until July 7.
In Amman, Jordan, Asha's father described his son as a good Muslim, not a fanatic, and expressed incredulity that he could be involved in an al-Qaeda-style bomb plot.
"I am sure Mohammed does not have any links of this nature because his history in Jordan and since he was a kid does not include any kind of activity of this nature," he told Reuters.
Police and ministers said protective security measures would be stepped up across Britain, particularly at transport hubs.
Dave Bryon, an aviation consultant and former director of British airline bmibaby, said attacks on airports posed a less controllable security threat than those targeting flights.
"When it's a landside incident you actually have very limited control, because not only have you got travellers, but you have people meeting and greeting, people dropping off ... and the taxi drivers and chauffeurs," he said.
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