Vegas
07-04-2007, 08:40 PM
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2028718.ece
Two suspected al-Qaeda terrorists who crashed a Jeep into Glasgow airport wrote a suicide note explaining their motives for the attack.
Police did not say where the apparent suicide note was found but the language in it indicated that the men intended to blow up the vehicle while they were inside, according to reports.
Both of the men survived the attack although Khalid Ahmed, the driver, suffered 90 per cent burns and is in a critical condition. The passenger, Bilal Abdulla, was not badly injured.
New family links between the eight people arrested in connection with the bomb attacks in London and Glasgow have been discovered by The Times.
Police sources also said last night that the current wave of arrests was over as the Government lowered its threat level from “critical”, its highest level, to “severe”. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said that there was no intelligence to suggest that another terrorist attack was imminent but urged the public to remain vigilant.
The decision to lower the threat level was made by the Joint Terrorism and Analysis Centre, according to the Home Secretary’s statement. The centre made its decision based on the “very latest intelligence” and had considered various factors including capability, intent and timescale, she added.
Having established quickly that each of the suspects had links with the NHS, police are investigating family ties. Relatives of Mohammed Haneef, the doctor held in Australia, told The Timesthat he was the cousin of Sabeel Ahmed, the doctor arrested in Liverpool on Saturday. They studied medicine together in Bangalore.
The family said that they were not close, but other relatives revealed that Dr Haneef left the Sim card of his British mobile phone with Dr Ahmed when he left Britain last year to take a job at the Gold Coast Hospital in Queensland, Australia.
Dr Haneef moved to Britain in March 2004 to be a locum at the Halton Hospital near Liverpool. While working there, he lived with other foreign doctors, including several Indians, in a shared house. It is also believed that Dr Ahmed is the brother of Khalid Ahmed.
Six terrorist suspects are still being held at Paddington Green police station in West London. Dr Haneef will be interviewed by a Scotland Yard detective who flew to Australia yesterday.
It also emerged yesterday that Bilal Abdulla was associated with a group of hardline Muslims in 2004. Dr Abdulla, who stayed in Cambridge for short periods in 2001 and 2004, is believed to have undertaken medical placements at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. When Dr Abdulla first lived in Cambridge in 2001 he rented a room in a house owned by the Cambridge Muslim Welfare Society, a community group operating out of a local mosque.
Hicham Kwieder, the secretary of the group, said: “I recognised a picture of him being dragged away from the flaming Jeep that drove into the front of Glasgow airport. I’ve spent all of Tuesday discussing this man with the police.”
Electoral records show that Dr Abdulla stayed in the home of a Cambridge kebab shop owner in late 2004. A neighbour said that the family at the house were hardline Muslims who worshipped in a prayer room above the shop and not at the local mosque.
As police investigated the possibility that Dr Abdulla masterminded the British terrorist cell after being recruited by al-Qaeda in Iraq, further details emerged about his background and his presence in Scotland, where he worked as a junior doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.
Dr Abdulla holds a British passport issued by the British Embassy in Amman, Jordan. Sources told The Timesthat it was issued more than five years ago. He was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, before moving to Iraq with his parents as a child.
For the past three months he has been living in a rented house in Houston, Renfrewshire, a few miles from Glasgow airport. There were reports last night that police had discovered a bomb factory in the garage. The two Mercedes used as car bombs in the West End of London are believed to have been driven to the capital by the men who carried out the attack in Glasgow.
Scotland Yard has refused to comment on reports that a syringe formed a key part of the fuse mechanism that failed to detonate.
Two suspected al-Qaeda terrorists who crashed a Jeep into Glasgow airport wrote a suicide note explaining their motives for the attack.
Police did not say where the apparent suicide note was found but the language in it indicated that the men intended to blow up the vehicle while they were inside, according to reports.
Both of the men survived the attack although Khalid Ahmed, the driver, suffered 90 per cent burns and is in a critical condition. The passenger, Bilal Abdulla, was not badly injured.
New family links between the eight people arrested in connection with the bomb attacks in London and Glasgow have been discovered by The Times.
Police sources also said last night that the current wave of arrests was over as the Government lowered its threat level from “critical”, its highest level, to “severe”. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said that there was no intelligence to suggest that another terrorist attack was imminent but urged the public to remain vigilant.
The decision to lower the threat level was made by the Joint Terrorism and Analysis Centre, according to the Home Secretary’s statement. The centre made its decision based on the “very latest intelligence” and had considered various factors including capability, intent and timescale, she added.
Having established quickly that each of the suspects had links with the NHS, police are investigating family ties. Relatives of Mohammed Haneef, the doctor held in Australia, told The Timesthat he was the cousin of Sabeel Ahmed, the doctor arrested in Liverpool on Saturday. They studied medicine together in Bangalore.
The family said that they were not close, but other relatives revealed that Dr Haneef left the Sim card of his British mobile phone with Dr Ahmed when he left Britain last year to take a job at the Gold Coast Hospital in Queensland, Australia.
Dr Haneef moved to Britain in March 2004 to be a locum at the Halton Hospital near Liverpool. While working there, he lived with other foreign doctors, including several Indians, in a shared house. It is also believed that Dr Ahmed is the brother of Khalid Ahmed.
Six terrorist suspects are still being held at Paddington Green police station in West London. Dr Haneef will be interviewed by a Scotland Yard detective who flew to Australia yesterday.
It also emerged yesterday that Bilal Abdulla was associated with a group of hardline Muslims in 2004. Dr Abdulla, who stayed in Cambridge for short periods in 2001 and 2004, is believed to have undertaken medical placements at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. When Dr Abdulla first lived in Cambridge in 2001 he rented a room in a house owned by the Cambridge Muslim Welfare Society, a community group operating out of a local mosque.
Hicham Kwieder, the secretary of the group, said: “I recognised a picture of him being dragged away from the flaming Jeep that drove into the front of Glasgow airport. I’ve spent all of Tuesday discussing this man with the police.”
Electoral records show that Dr Abdulla stayed in the home of a Cambridge kebab shop owner in late 2004. A neighbour said that the family at the house were hardline Muslims who worshipped in a prayer room above the shop and not at the local mosque.
As police investigated the possibility that Dr Abdulla masterminded the British terrorist cell after being recruited by al-Qaeda in Iraq, further details emerged about his background and his presence in Scotland, where he worked as a junior doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.
Dr Abdulla holds a British passport issued by the British Embassy in Amman, Jordan. Sources told The Timesthat it was issued more than five years ago. He was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, before moving to Iraq with his parents as a child.
For the past three months he has been living in a rented house in Houston, Renfrewshire, a few miles from Glasgow airport. There were reports last night that police had discovered a bomb factory in the garage. The two Mercedes used as car bombs in the West End of London are believed to have been driven to the capital by the men who carried out the attack in Glasgow.
Scotland Yard has refused to comment on reports that a syringe formed a key part of the fuse mechanism that failed to detonate.