ChristiansUnite Forums

2 Arrested After Car on Fire Rams Glasgow Terminal

Saturday , June 30, 2007

AP

GLASGOW, Scotland —
Two men rammed a flaming sport utility vehicle into the main terminal of Glasgow airport Saturday, crashing into the glass doors at the entrance and sparking a fire, witnesses said. Police said two suspects were arrested.

There were no reports of injuries but the airport — Scotland's largest — was evacuated and all flights suspended, a day after British police thwarted a plot to bomb central London, discovering two cars abandoned with loads of gasoline, gas canisters and nails.

"One has to conclude ... these are linked," Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former head of Britain's joint intelligence committee, told Sky News. "This is a very young government, and we may yet see further attacks."

Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, who took office only Wednesday, was being briefed on developments, Downing Street said.

In Glasgow, the green SUV barreled toward the building shortly after 3 p.m., hitting security barriers before crashing into the glass doors and exploding, witnesses said. Two men jumped out of the burning vehicle, one of them engulfed in flames, they said.

"The car came speeding past at about 30 mph. It was approaching the building quickly," said Scott Leeson, who was nearby at the time. "Then the driver swerved the car around so he could ram straight in to the door. He must have been trying to smash straight through."

Two men were arrested, Strathclyde Police spokeswoman Lisa O'Neil said.

Passengers fled running and screaming from the busy terminal, Margaret Hughes told the British Broadcasting Corp. "There was black smoke gushing out where the car had obviously been driven into the airport," she said.

Flames and black smoke rose from the vehicle outside the main entrance. Police said it was unclear if anyone was injured. Other passengers were stranded, with at least one airplane grounded on the runway, the BBC said.

The White House said President Bush was being keep abreast of the events in London and Scotland.

"We're in contact with British authorities on the matter," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

The crash at Glasgow airport comes exactly a week before the second anniversary of the July 7 bombings that killed 52 people.

Leeson said bollards — security posts outside the entrance — stopped the driver from barreling into the bustling terminal at Glasgow's airport.

"He's trying to get through the main door frame but the bollards have stopped him from going through. If he'd got through, he'd have killed hundreds, obviously," he said.

Leeson said only the nose of the vehicle made it inside the building. Richard Grey told the BBC that the vehicle was lodged into the center of the terminal's main entrance.

"The jeep is completely on fire and it exploded not long after. It exploded at the entrance to the terminal," witness Stephen Clarkson told the BBC. "It may have been an explosion of petrol in the tank because it was not a massive explosion."

Two men — one of them engulfed in flames — were in the SUV, witnesses told BBC News executive Helen Boaden, who was at the airport at time. She described the men as South Asian.

Clarkson described him as a large South Asian man. "His whole body was on fire.... He was just talking gibberish," he told the BBC.

"An Asian guy had been pulled out of the car by two police officers he was trying to fight off and they'd got him on the floor," Grey told the BBC.

Boaden said police "wrestled him to the ground — the fire was burning through his clothes — and finally put him out with a fire extinguisher."

Lesson said an airport officials did not think the incident was an accident.

"He said the men in the car got out and started throwing petrol about — that must be how it caught fire," he said.

Another witness, Fiona Tracey, described a "bang" coming from the SUV. The vehicle was on fire and "every now and again there was a bang coming off it. ... There was definitely a bang," she told Sky News television.

Grey said the car did not explode. "There were a few pops and bangs that seemed to be the tires and the petrol."

2 Arrested After Car on Fire Rams Glasgow Terminal (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,287472,00.html)

Glasgow attack seen tied to London bombs

By IAN STEWART, Associated Press Writer 18 minutes ago

GLASGOW, Scotland - A Jeep Cherokee trailing a cascade of flames rammed into Glasgow's airport 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 London the day before.

Britain raised its terror alert to "critical" — the highest possible level — and the Bush administration announced plans to increase security at airports and on mass transit.

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 Glasgow were wounded, although none seriously, police said.

Rae said a "suspect device" was found on the man at the hospital and it was taken to a safe location where it was being investigated. He would not say whether the device was a suicide belt, but British security officials said evidence pointed to the attack being a suicide mission.

Police later arrested two more suspects in the London and Glasgow plots in Cheshire county in northern England, Scotland Yard said early Sunday.

"I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow airport is linked to the events in London yesterday," Rae said at a news conference. "There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident."

Police foiled the earlier plot Friday after two cars were found in central London packed with explosives — one outside a nightclub near Piccadilly Circus and another parked nearby.

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 Scotland, but they have monitored a host of suspected terrorists and plots there, he said. It was not yet clear whether there was an international element to the planning or funding of the attacks, the official said.

The new terror threat presents Prime Minister Gordon 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 London transit attacks, which killed 52 people.

"I know that the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong," Brown said Saturday in a televised statement.

President Bush was being kept informed of the situation, the White House said. "We're in contact with British authorities on the matter," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, in Washington.

The green Jeep barreled toward Glasgow's main airport terminal shortly after 3 p.m. Witness Scott Leeson said bollards — security posts outside the entrance — stopped the driver from driving into the bustling terminal, but the nose of the vehicle smashed the glass doors.

"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 Erskine, Scotland.

Police subdued the driver and a passenger, both described by witnesses as South Asian — a term used to refer to people from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries in the region. The previous round of terrorist activity in Britain, in July 2005, was largely carried out by local Muslims, raising ethnic tensions in Britain.

Witnesses said one of the men was engulfed in flames and spoke "gibberish" as an official used a fire extinguisher to douse the fire.

Glasgow police spokeswoman Elisa Dunn said five bystanders were treated for injuries — one of whom was hospitalized with a leg injury.

About 2,500 people were evacuated from the airport and all flights were suspended. Police said Liverpool Airport and roads around Edinburgh were also closed.

The attack left passengers shaken and stranded on the first day of summer vacation for Glasgow schools. At the time of the crash, the airport was bustling with families heading out on vacation.

Meanwhile in London, police were gathering evidence from closed circuit television footage, as forensics experts searched for clues into the foiled bombings. The two Mercedes cars had been loaded with gasoline, gas canisters and nails in one of the capital's busiest areas on a night when Londoners like to go out and party. Security officials and police denied an ABC News report that they had a "crystal clear" picture of one suspect from CCTV footage.

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.

One car was abandoned outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub on Haymarket in the heart of London's entertainment district. The other had been towed after being parked illegally on nearby Cockspur Street and was discovered in an impound lot about a mile away in Park Lane, near Hyde Park.

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 London's Wembley Stadium on Sunday to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, police said.

In the New York area, officials at the airports went on a heightened state of alert and manned vehicle checkpoints. No threats had been made against the airports, said Steve Coleman, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Brown came to office pledging to win back the support of voters disenchanted over the Iraq war. But he backed Tony Blair's decision to send troops to Iraq in 2003 and has shown support for greater anti-terror measures that have angered Britain's some 1.8 million Muslims.

The Glasgow incident carried reminders of a foiled plot in December 1999 to attack Los Angeles International Airport, when customs agents stopped an Algerian-born man in a car packed with 124 explosives. He was jailed for 22 years and prosecutors said he was intent on bombing the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium.

Glasgow attack seen tied to London bombs (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070701/ap_on_re_eu/britain_airport_crash;_ylt=AogAfRupP4W5c17nUf6y__dvaA8F)

UK terrorism risk "critical" after Glasgow attack

By Alistair Bell 16 minutes ago

GLASGOW (Reuters) - Britain is at "critical" risk of a terrorist attack, the government says, after a petrol-filled car was rammed into the terminal at Glasgow airport the day after failed car bombings in London.

Two men, one of whom was badly burned, were arrested in Glasgow after the car exploded in flames. Two more people were arrested later on a motorway in northern England in connection with the incidents on Friday and Saturday.

"I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow airport is linked to the events in London yesterday," the top police officer in the Glasgow area, Willie Rae, told reporters.

"There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident."

Britain's Home Office (interior ministry) has raised the national security alert level to "critical," the highest ranking and one which indicates further attacks are expected imminently.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in office for just four days, convened a meeting of Britain's top security committee on Saturday.

"I want all British people to be vigilant and want them to support the police and all the authorities ... I know the British people will stand together united, resolute and strong," he said.

Rae said the vehicle, a green Jeep Cherokee, was driven at speed into the main glass door to the airport terminal in Glasgow, Scotland's second city 400 miles north of London, and was then engulfed in flames.

Rae said the badly burnt man was found to have a "suspect device" hidden on his body but would not confirm it was a suicide vest. The hospital briefly had to be evacuated while the device was inspected.

The attack, which the head of Scotland's administration described as a "terrorist incident," came barely 36 hours after police thwarted a possible al Qaeda plot in London in which two cars loaded with fuel, gas canisters and nails were left in the centre of the capital poised to detonate.

TWO ARRESTS

Early on Sunday, London's Metropolitan Police said they had arrested two people "in connection with the events in London and Scotland on the 29th and 30th of June."

A caller to BBC television said he had been in a car in the county of Cheshire, on a motorway which links London with Glasgow, when traffic had been brought to a halt by unmarked police cars in all three lanes.

The man, named as Peter Whitehead, said he saw a woman in what he called Muslim dress and two men in suits step out of a car which had pulled to the side of the motorway.

The Metropolitan Police said no further details of the arrests were available.

In Kennebunkport, Maine, the United States announced it was boosting security at airports nationwide, although the overall U.S. terrorism threat level would remain the same.

In Glasgow, where one member of the public was injured trying to wrestle the two suspects to the ground, witnesses described those arrested as Asian men and said the car had headed at furious speed towards the airport entrance.

"It raced across the central reservation and went straight into the building," said taxi driver Ian Crosby outside the terminal. The airport was shut down following the incident.

In London, police scoured hours of CCTV footage and extra squads were deployed on the streets after the discovery in the early hours of Friday of a vehicle packed with up to 60 liters of fuel, several gas canisters and a large quantity of nails.

A mobile phone, which security experts believed might have been a detonation device, was left inside the fume-filled car.

A second Mercedes packed with gas and nails was later found to have been parked just a few hundred yards from the first.

The foiled plot came to light two years after a coordinated attack by suicide bombers on London's transport system killed 52 commuters.

UK terrorism risk "critical" after Glasgow attack (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070701/wl_nm/britain_bomb_dc_34;_ylt=Arq9dyJunYZnQIPJDny.DHhbbBAF)