Surprise: Cops think Glasgow jihadis drove the London car bombs; Update: Two more arrested; Update: Second suspect named — Iraqi doctor trained in Baghdad; Update Five doctors now in custody
posted at 12:54 am on July 2, 2007 by Allahpundit
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Might as well get a jump on tomorrow’s Glasgow thread. If you’re looking for more links between the incident at the airport and the two in London, then brother, it don’t come any linkier than this:
Security bosses believe the two men in Glasgow also drove two Mercedes cars laden with petrol and gas canisters used in a failed bid to devastate London’s West End early on Friday…
They are believed to have come from the Middle East a year ago.
The Telegraph’s hearing the same thing. This would explain the murky tidbit in the last thread about the cops being hot on the trail of the Glasgow jihadis just before they struck. They must have already figured out who the London car bombers were and zeroed in on them in Scotland.
The Sun claims that the Iranian Kurdish doctor arrested yesterday on the highway with his wife is suspected of being the cell leader, and that “in the past two weeks two Asian men with long beards had turned up in a car on several occasions and stayed the night” at his home. How big is the cell? At least eight members, according to the Guardian, all linked by “a controlling ‘Mr. Big.’” Three are still at large. Maybe more.
You know the drill. Updates aplenty tomorrow.
Update: The British Islamist nut who called last year for the Pope to be killed after he made his comments about Islam considers these attacks “completely justified.”
Update: Two more were arrested last night, both in connection with the Glasgow bombing. Seven down, one (or more?) to go.
Update: Hmmm.
British intelligence agencies had warned the government last April that terrorist attacks might be initiated by Iranian Kurds to coincide with the end of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s term of office, according to a person who saw the warning. Mr. Blair handed power to Mr. Brown last Wednesday.
The government has not confirmed that report, and it is unclear precisely why Iranian Kurds would be aggrieved. But a radical Kurdish group, Ansar al-Islam, was largely driven out of northern Iraq four years ago when American and British forces overthrew Saddam Hussein, and it has since found a haven in Iran, security officials have said.
Update: Scenes from the arrest of the doctor and his wife on the highway in northern England:
Two carloads of officers wearing protective vests jumped out of their Volvo estates. A witness said: “They started shouting ‘Get out of the car, get out of the car’.
“The guy didn’t move and sat there for about a minute before coming out with his hands up.
“The police continued shouting ‘Get down, get down on the floor!’ but he just ignored them.
“The next thing they used a Taser stun gun on him. The guy seemed to be wearing quite a few jumpers and nothing happened.
“He carried on standing just looking at them. Then they Tasered him again and he went down. He was handcuffed and bundled into the back of one of about four other police cars that had arrived.”
The witness saw officers open the back of the Toyota to discover a suitcase and large parcel.
Update: Indeed, it sounds like the cops had the names of the guys before they attacked the airport.
[T]he director of a Paisley-based letting agency which rented a house to one man suspected of involvement said today that his company had been contacted by detectives just before the airport attack.
Police appeared to have established a link between the tenants of the house in Houston, near the airport, and two failed car bomb attacks on Friday in London, Daniel Gardiner, of the Let-It agency, said.
“A card was put through one of my colleague’s door, asking if we would contact them,” he said. “He had been out for a couple of hours and found the note when he got back at 3.05pm. The card was put through prior to the incident at Glasgow airport.
The same Guardian story quotes the new British home secretary, Jacqui Smith, as saying she’s “not certain” if U.S. intel shared the tip they had about aviation attacks in Scotland two weeks ago. The Blotter quotes Scottish officials as saying they had “no advance intelligence.”
Update: Sky says the name of the Glasgow jihadi who wasn’t burned is Bilal Abdulla and that he’s an Iraqi doctor who trained in Baghdad. There’s some confusion in the article about the name of the other jihadi, though: Sky ID’s him as Mohammed Asha, but I believe that’s the name of the Iranian Kurdish doctor who was arrested on the highway. As far as I know we don’t know the name of the burned jihadi yet.
Update: You’ve got to be kidding. Don’t doctors have anything better to do in their leisure time than plot jihad?
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I wonderd if they might me the same. looks like I might have been right.
xplodeit on July 2, 2007 at 1:03 AM
Dump Chertoff!
Do you have confisdence that “lettuce-picker-people-protector” Chertoff will protect you from determined jihadists?
HA!
AZCON on July 2, 2007 at 1:03 AM
Quit lyin’. Islam is a religion of peace. It was the IRA!
Kevin M on July 2, 2007 at 1:07 AM
I think the guy in the photo looks like a really bad dermatologist.
profitsbeard on July 2, 2007 at 1:08 AM
Blaming islamic people for creating islamic terror in the name of Islam is islamophobic! Can’t we go with the IRA?
Kevin M on July 2, 2007 at 1:09 AM
Well, it just goes to show that we are kicking the Muslim A team’s ass in Iraq right now. The B team is failing miserably in the UK and the US.
Let’s face it, we’ve killed off the few with any brains.
reaganaut on July 2, 2007 at 1:32 AM
I just hope the liberal media and politicians can explain to me how a doctor can be one of those poor, hopeless, dispossessed people who are driven to terror. What was the root cause of this physician’s turn to terror? Was he denied the Mercedes with the leather seats and forced to accept cloth seats instead?
Tantor on July 2, 2007 at 1:47 AM
Which just goes to show how much of a dumbass Larry Johnson is. OMG, the terrorists were doctors that could easily afford decade-old Mercedes?? Who would have thought? Not Terrorist Super Expert Larry Johnson.
Seixon on July 2, 2007 at 1:50 AM
I don’t know if this matters but the Guuardian link says
Which could be why authoiritis are being mum on the “doctor” part. It might be a possibility - might not.
I left this (warning PDF) link in another thread and have no idea if the Mohammed Asha listed on the right is the same (not sure the age lines up) but also the “name” of chairman has an interesting google- not to mention the shareholders - at least one was named in USAG SDNY 9-11 indictment of terror financiers
Anyways - just an idle thought - with the nature of this company - maybe a self-described “doctor” of chemistry?
Topsecretk9 on July 2, 2007 at 2:27 AM
Everyone must behold Larry “Baghdad Bob” Johnson’s response
Here is an image to keep in your mind when reading it
Notice the desperate “cia colleage” resume bolstering reference - um it’s just precious.
Topsecretk9 on July 2, 2007 at 3:29 AM
That should have read “They’re believed to be Asians”.
Anyway, has anyone figured out what the motivator was for these guys yet? I heard some kooks saying that Islam might be behind this, but come on!
RightWinged on July 2, 2007 at 3:42 AM
I knew it….It just made sense.
TheBigOldDog on July 2, 2007 at 6:14 AM
Do we smell the scent of Iranian QOD’s force?
Zorro on July 2, 2007 at 6:48 AM
Maybe, if they were doctors, they were pissed at the state of health care in the UK - oh wait, aren’t they socialized? Hmmm… No Starbucks in the neighborhood?
TinMan13 on July 2, 2007 at 6:49 AM
When I see that turd laying there all burned.
I harken back to the words of the Great and wise Paris Hilton,
“That’s Hot!”
TheSitRep on July 2, 2007 at 7:29 AM
Well, it just goes to show that we are kicking the Muslim A team’s ass in Iraq right now. The B team is failing miserably in the UK and the US.
Let’s face it, we’ve killed off the few with any brains.
reaganaut on July 2, 2007 at 1:32 AM
That is sage, my friend.
TheSitRep on July 2, 2007 at 7:32 AM
At the end of the day, how important is it that these people belong to some larger group, such as al Qaeda?
Are people any less dead, or, in this case, any less threatened, by the possibility that these goons are not card-carrying, blood-oath, secret-handshake, training camp graduates sent forth by some unseen hand?
Brown stated yesterday that they are linked to al Qaeda, so if that proves wrong, and these guys wind up being independent Islamic whackos, the media will sound no different than Larry Johnson — because no one in western government has the guts to publicly admit that what all these inhuman bloodsuckers have in common is firstly, lastly and obviously Islam, as taught by radicals in mosques throughout the western world.
The doctor who was recently convicted on terrorism charges in NY is a good case in point: the media pooh-poohed him as harmless, because all he did, according to the geniuses of the press, was get tricked into swearing an oath to al Qaeda by an undercover agent. The good doctor, however, in an act of supreme hubris, took the stand on his own behalf, and the prosecution succeeded in exposing him as a foaming-at-the-mouth, wife-beating, Quran-waving jihadist in waiting. The jury had the opportunity to see what lies beyond the “if you ain’t al Qaeda you ain’t nothing” mantra, and found him guilty.
Nichevo on July 2, 2007 at 7:41 AM
Larry Johnson wouldn’t call the Glasgow terrorists “bombers” because the bombs didn’t go off. I have news for him. An airplane that carries bombs is a “bomber” whether or not it ever drops them. The threat and implied danger is there.
Go away, Larry.
Qzsusy on July 2, 2007 at 8:40 AM
Let me get this right…they are amatuers until they kill a few thousand people…they are not bombers until they kill a few hundred…they are no threat until they kill dozens or hundreds…Unless they have the AQ phone book they are not part of AQ…religion never plays a part of their actions…the backlash is more important then the event, because the “event” never came to be…
I think I am getting it now.
If the bomb doesn’t explode and kill hundreds, it never happened, and we are foolish even to report it. And if it does, it is our fault…we should have been paying closer attention to people that we shouldn’t pay closer attention to.
right2bright on July 2, 2007 at 8:55 AM
Jihadists!? Huh. So not Episcopalians then? Damn I lost that bet.
Dash on July 2, 2007 at 9:00 AM
A bunch of liberals leapt to the conclusion that everybody else on planet earth BESIDES Muslims must have done this.
So where the Hell is our apology?
logis on July 2, 2007 at 9:02 AM
Mr. Choudary needs a visit from the Black Watch and subsidized housing in the Tower.
Contribution to the Smeats Pint fund on the way.
Limerick on July 2, 2007 at 9:11 AM
I don’t know if we can assume all seven guys are from the same terror cell… the Brits might be arresting accomplices, or something else likely: members of another cell they have also been monitoring. Just in case this is the start of a wave of attacks relating to the 7/7 anniversary.
e-pirate on July 2, 2007 at 9:14 AM
If any of these ‘gentlemen’ are catch-and-release then that is all the more reason to leave Gitmo up and operating.
Limerick on July 2, 2007 at 9:21 AM
CCTV works. However, when the ACLU equates it to being Stalinist, they are telling you that if they want to do lued things in public they must be allowed to so without fear of being caught on tape.
Someone must inform them that being caught on CCTV may be the best way to get their message out and let the public decide if they agree or not. OOOPs, forgot the public probably would not like it so they would be ridiculed which would hurt their feelings and we can not to that according to the PC police.
MSGTAS on July 2, 2007 at 10:11 AM
I just wish I could have been there to use my boot to grind the freshly toasted Jihadi around on the gravel to enhance the sensory overload those burns must be producing.
Alden Pyle on July 2, 2007 at 10:47 AM
this guy in Pic is obviously not “Asian”
jp on July 2, 2007 at 11:16 AM
Middle Eastern Jihadists- just doing the jobs that British Jihadists won’t do themselves.
Seriously, what will it take to shake the UK out of their overly-PC denial about the “Islamic problem” they have within their society? You would have thought the London bus bombings would have been enough but, yet, here we are again. What really scares me is the possibility that these amateurish attacks are merely intelligence gathering missions to see how the authorities will react so that they can plan the real attack better.
highhopes on July 2, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Libs just won’t get it till they’re nuked… several times.
That’s how it’s been in Islam for centuries. Anybody with any courage or brains was killed off long ago. All that’s left are the mindless minions that don’t even question the mass murder of innocents.
Mojave Mark on July 2, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Seriously?? He looks Asian to me.
cardindex7 on July 2, 2007 at 12:36 PM
He looks Pakistani or Saudi.
cardindex7 on July 2, 2007 at 12:38 PM
A-Team, B-Team…All The way to Z. All it takes is one cell or individual to succeed and this goes from the left’s idea of botched or non-serious threat to tragedy.
PowWow on July 2, 2007 at 3:09 PM
Looks like they nabbed another one in Australia and he’s a doctor, too.
That is a lot of doctors, and now that I think of it, doctors deal in biology, germs and all. I don’t like the cross-fertilization of terrorists and doctors that know about germs much. I wonder if that is why folks are worried about spectacular attacks this summer. The thought of doctors and germs ties in better with the question, I think Steyn(?) mentioned, about whether these attacks were a distraction.
If they were, then that potentiality should be less so now that the doctors are being rounded up, but that’s only true is the intel guys consider it.
One is a neurologist. Any info on what the others are?
Dusty on July 2, 2007 at 9:32 PM