British police believe they have arrested the main suspects in
last week's Al-Qaida-style bomb plot, some of whom appeared in
intelligence databases on radical Islamists, sources close to the
investigation said yesterday.
The terror threat level was reduced yesterday night from
"critical" to "severe" after no intelligence suggest any imminent
danger.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown ordered a review of recruitment to
Britain's state-run health service after security sources said all
of the eight people arrested, including one in Australia, were
doctors or have medical links.
Two are Indians and the rest are from the Middle East.
"I have asked ... the new terrorism minister to conduct an
immediate review as to what arrangements we must make in relation
to recruitment to the NHS (National Health Service)," Brown told
parliament yesterday.
A security source said the MI5 intelligence agency had
discovered fragments of information on some of the suspects in its
databases on suspected radical Islamists. This had helped the
investigation.
While no evidence has emerged that medical expertise was central
to the plot, the alleged involvement of doctors has caused disquiet
in Britain, where nearly 40 percent of registered doctors are
foreign-trained.
Security analysts said the idea that militant Islamists could be
working in hospitals, with potential access to dangerous biological
or radiological substances, was alarming, even if no such materials
were involved in this case.
"If all of these doctors are involved in this cell, that is very
disturbing. That is a new dimension entirely for the security
services," said M.J. Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation in
London.
A British Anglican cleric in Baghdad said he had received a
veiled warning from an Al-Qaida leader while in Amman in April that
attacks were planned against Britain and America and that "the
people who cure you will kill you" - with hindsight, a possible
reference to doctors.
Canon Andrew White told the Times newspaper he passed the
warning, but not the actual words, to a Foreign Office
official.
A police source said detectives believed they had now arrested
the main potential attackers in a plot that Brown - in office for
only one week - has said may be linked to Al-Qaida.
Police said a British counter-terrorism officer was en route to
Australia to help detectives there question an Indian doctor
detained on Tuesday while about to fly out of the country.
Detectives were questioning six people held in London. A seventh
man arrested in Scotland after Saturday's attack on Glasgow airport
remains ill in hospital with severe burns.
(China Daily via agencies July 5, 2007)
