Britain lowers terrorism threat level

PAISLEY DODDS

Britain has lowered the terrorism threat level following the capture of eight people connected with three failed car bombings and increased scrutiny of foreigners recruited for their skills, including doctors.

In other developments in the case Wednesday, a British priest who works in Baghdad said he was warned more than two months ago of attacks on Britain and the United States by a man believed linked to al-Qaida who also hinted that doctors might be involved.

All of the suspects in last week’s attempted car bombings in London and a fiery vehicle attack in Glasgow are doctors or other medical personnel. Authorities say the failed bombings bear all the characteristics of an al-Qaida operation.

Britain reduced its terrorism threat level to “severe,” meaning further attacks are still considered likely but not imminent, as was feared when authorities raised the level to “critical” after the failed attacks.

Still, Britain’s home secretary asked the public to remain vigilant, saying there was still a “serious and real threat against the United Kingdom.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there will be increased scrutiny of foreigners recruited for their skills, including doctors coming to work for the National Health Service.

“We’ll expand the background checks that have been done where there are highly skilled migrant workers coming into this country,” Brown told the House of Commons in his first appearance at the weekly prime minister’s questions.

Six physicians are among the eight suspects — one each from Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan and two from India. Also in custody are the Jordanian’s wife, a medical assistant, and a doctor and medical student thought to be from the Middle East, possibly Saudi Arabia. None has been charged.

A senior Anglican priest, meanwhile, said he received a cryptic warning from a purported al-Qaida chief more than two months ago. Canon Andrew White said the man, an educated Iraqi in his 40s who wore Western clothes, threatened attacks on Britain and the United States and hinted at the involvement of doctors.

“‘Those who cure you are going to kill you,’” he quoted the man as telling him at a gathering of religious leaders on April 18 in Jordanian capital, Amman. White, who spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from Baghdad, meets regularly with extremists in an attempt to calm Iraq’s sectarian violence.

“As soon as I heard many of the suspects were doctors I remembered those words,” White said. “I work with a lot of people who are not necessarily good people. It becomes very difficult to distinguish what threat is real and what is not.”

White said he gave the man’s identity to the Foreign Office but would not say publicly what it was. He also said he gave the same details to American authorities in Baghdad.

A U.S.-based intelligence monitoring group said Wednesday that it obtained a copy of a video in which al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader urges Muslims to unite in a holy war against the West. But it did not mention the bombing attempts in Britain.

It was not possible to determine from the transcript released by the group SITE whether the video of Ayman al-Zawahri was recorded before the attacks.

Several of the suspects were on a watch list compiled by the domestic intelligence agency MI5, a British government security official said, indicating their identities previously had been logged by agents. The official did not say why they were put on the watch list.

The official said Britain’s security services are watching about 1,600 people and have details logged about hundreds more.

The Times of London said one of the eight people in custody, Iraqi-born physician Bilal Abdulla, reportedly had links to radical Islamic groups and several others were linked to extremist radicals on Britain’s watchlist.

Abdulla was a passenger in the Jeep that smashed into Glasgow’s airport. Investigators believe the same men who parked two explosives-laden Mercedes cars in London may have also driven the blazing SUV in Glasgow, officials say.

Shiraz Maher, a former member of a radical Islamic group, said he knew Abdulla at Cambridge University.

“He was certainly very angry about what was happening in Iraq. … He supported the insurgency in Iraq. He actively cheered the deaths of British and American troops in Iraq,” Maher told British Broadcasting Corp.

He said Abdulla berated a Muslim roommate for not being devout enough, showing him a beheading video and warning that could happen to him. Maher said Abdulla also claimed to have a number of videos of the then-leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike last year.

Abdulla had been disciplined by his employers at the Royal Alexandra Hospital outside Glasgow for spending too much time on the Internet, according to hospital staff, suggesting the plot may have been planned in cyberspace.

Police seized several computers from hospitals in Glasgow, Stoke-on-Kent and Liverpool.

BBC, citing unidentified sources, said police in Scotland had identified a house rented by one of the suspects arrested in Glasgow as a potential bomb factory. Police could not comment on the report.

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