U.K. on edge after jeep rams airport
LONDON – Two men rammed a jeep into the entrance of the main terminal at Glasgow Airport on Saturday, sending a burst of flames into the air and terrifying bystanders.
Authorities said the attack was linked to two attempted car bombings Friday in London and raised the national alert to “critical,” the highest level, which means they believe another attack is imminent.
The driver of the jeep, who was engulfed in flames, and his passenger were arrested. Police said they found a “suspect device” on the driver after the attack, when he was taken to a hospital to be treated for severe burns.
Though there were reports of cylinders of propane gas inside the jeep and a succession of other explosions, no bystanders were seriously injured. Concrete security posts prevented the car from fully entering the terminal.
In London, a somber looking Gordon Brown, who took over as prime minister from Tony Blair on Wednesday, urged Britons to be “vigilant” and “support the police.”
“I know the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong,” Brown said in a brief address Saturday night.
Authorities said they were bracing for more attacks from what they believe are homegrown terrorists using readily available materials such as propane gas to kill innocent people and unnerve the British government. “We have not seen the end of this,” a senior government official said on condition of ano- nymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The attack shut Scotland’s busiest airport, stranding thousands of travelers, including many children enjoying the first day of summer vacation from school.
Stephen Clarkson, a passenger who was in the terminal, told reporters that he knocked one of the two men from the jeep to the ground. Clarkson and other witnesses said both men appeared to be of South Asian descent.
“He was on fire, the jeep was on fire as well,” Clarkson said. “He started fighting with police. I managed to knock him to the ground, and four police officers got on top of him.”
On Friday, London police discovered and disabled “viable explosive devices” in two Mercedes sedans packed with gasoline and nails. Police continued to search for the drivers of those cars, aided by forensic evidence and images taken from the omnipotent closed-circuit televisions in downtown London.
Magnus Ranstorp, a Swedish terrorism expert who consults closely with British officials, said the threat in the United Kingdom is the gravest in Europe.
“Without luck and without the public’s help, there’s no way they will be able to stem the tide that is coming toward them,” said Ranstorp, research director of the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm. “There is no question that the United Kingdom is still facing an onslaught of (terrorist) cells that are ready and willing to launch attacks like this.”
Britain is a target, he said, in part because it is seen as the closest ally of the United States and its biggest military partner in Iraq.
Almost all terrorist plots carried out by Islamic militants in the past five years in Britain have included investigative trails that led to Pakistan. With an estimated 1 million people of Pakistani descent living in Britain and hundreds of thousands traveling each year between the two countries, it is particularly difficult to track those involved in plots hatched or guided by al-Qaida forces based in Pakistan.