Foreign-born doctors held in U.K. plot

LONDON — At least three physicians were identified Monday among suspects arrested in Britain's failed car-bomb attacks, and authorities announced three new arrests — including a doctor in Australia — as the investigation spread overseas.

British media reports said an Indian doctor also was among the eight people in custody and another outlet said at least five of the detainees in Britain were physicians. British police confirmed a Palestinian doctor and Iraqi physician were among those held, while Australian officials said a foreign doctor working there had been detained.

Officers used heightened stop-and-search powers and armed-response vehicles to hunt for anyone else who might have been involved in the plot, and police put on a show of force to bolster security at airports and train stations and on city streets.

Australian authorities later said the suspect was arrested at the airport in the eastern city of Brisbane while trying to leave the country. Queensland state Premier Peter Beattie described the suspect as a 27-year-old man but withheld his identity.

Australian police are questioning a second doctor over the failed terrorist attacks, Beattie said. But authorities were not aware of any specific link between the second doctor and the foiled attacks.

A British security official said earlier in the day that Pakistan and several other nations were asked to check possible links with the suspects.

Authorities said police searched at least 19 locations as part of the "fast-moving investigation," which has come at a time of already high vigilance before the anniversary of the suicide bombings in London that killed 52 people on July 7, 2005.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has said the group behind the weekend attacks was "associated with al-Qaida," got a call from President Bush commending him for Britain's response.

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials said the attackers in Britain were Islamic extremists sympathetic to al-Qaida, but investigators were still trying to figure out whether there were any direct links.

One of the officials also said there continued to be concerns about possible plots to attack the United States, including the potential for a large-scale assault by al-Qaida. Among the factors contributing to the worry are al-Qaida's efforts to recruit in Pakistan's tribal areas and its increased flow of public messages, the official said.

In the latest attacks, two car bombs failed to explode in central London on Friday and two men rammed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas cylinders into the entrance of Glasgow International Airport and then set it on fire Saturday.

The British government security official said investigators were working on one theory that the same people may have driven the explosives-laden cars into London and the blazing SUV in Glasgow.

The unidentified driver of the Jeep was being treated for serious burns at Royal Alexandra Hospital in Glasgow, where he was under arrest by armed police. Bomb experts carried out a second controlled explosion on a car at the hospital Monday, after a similar blast Sunday. Police said the car was linked to the investigation, but no explosives had been found.

Police announced Monday that they arrested two men the previous day at residences at the hospital but would not say whether they were doctors. Four men and a woman were detained earlier.

Authorities identified Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi doctor who worked at the Glasgow hospital, as the other man arrested at the airport and said he was being held at a high-security police station in Glasgow.

According to the British General Medical Council's register, a man named Bilal Talal Abdul Samad Abdulla was registered in 2004 and trained in Baghdad. Staff at the Glasgow hospital said Abdulla was a diabetes specialist.

A man arrested late Saturday on a highway in central England also was a physician, Mohammed Jamil Abdelqader Asha, police said. A Jordanian official said Asha was of Palestinian descent and carried a Jordanian passport.

Britain's The Independent and The Muslim News newspapers reported that a man arrested in Liverpool late Saturday was a 26-year-old doctor from Bangalore, India, who worked at Halton Hospital in Cheshire, northern England. Police would not immediately comment on the reports.

The Muslim News also said the Indian doctor had used the car, cellphone and Internet account of a fellow physician who had moved from England to Australia around a year ago.

"This case could be the final proof that an idea those involved in these type of attacks are all young, angry and poorly educated is a mistake," said Paul Cornish, a former British army officer and director of defense studies at London's Chatham House think tank.

The profile of the suspects raised a number of questions. If they were involved in the attacks, did they become radicalized after arriving in Britain? Or were they involved in or preparing for extremist activities when they entered the country and earned the right to practice as doctors?

The case so far presents contradictions typical of Islamic extremism. On the one hand, the cell was able to put together their schemes, assemble the bombs and direct them at iconic targets without being detected by a massive domestic espionage apparatus that has been on maximum alert since the 2005 transport bombings.

On the other hand, the crude car bombs failed to inflict damage. And the bombers made elementary mistakes: They left one of the explosives-packed Mercedes in a no-parking zone where, as most Londoners know, being towed is all but guaranteed.

Information also surfaced Monday suggesting authorities had been close on the trail of the alleged plotters before the attack at the Glasgow airport.

Rental agent Daniel Gardiner, whose company leased a Glasgow-area house searched by police, said officers contacted his firm just before the airport blaze to say they had tracked phone records linked to the property.

Officials recovered at least one cellphone from the car bombs in London, Rep. Peter King of New York, the senior Republican on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, said Friday after being briefed about the London situation.

As the investigation spread, police flooded subway and train stations, even clamping down on access to the Wimbledon tennis tournament.

Information from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.