Five held over 'al-Qaeda' bomb attempts

Five people are being held after a suspected al-Qaeda-related attack on Glasgow Airport following the discovery of two London car bombs.Two men were arrested on Saturday night on the M6 near Sandbach in Cheshire and one in Liverpool on Sunday morning where a large number of police officers descended on a house on a street off Penny Lane in the south of the city.They have been held in connection with the plots in the capital when two cars loaded with petrol, gas canisters and nails were left ready to detonate but were foiled by chance in the West End.Barely 36 hours later, two men drove a blazing Cherokee jeep into Glasgow Airport. Both were arrested at the scene. One suffered severe burns after being engulfed in flames and is now in a critical condition in hospital.Speaking after chairing a meeting of the Government's Cobra emergency contingencies committee, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "We won't, as the British people be intimidated or let anyone stop us getting on with our lives".Ms Smith urged the public to remain vigilant and to carry on reporting suspicious events to the public.As the security level was raised to critical, police wearing white plastic bodysuits and face masks combed several houses near the airport, in the town of Houston, about six miles (10km) west of Glasgow.Neighbours said two Asian men had moved into one of the searched houses, a five minute drive from the airport, about a month ago but had kept very much to themselves.Mae Gordon, 67, said: "I don't remember seeing them at all. They were the only people around here you would never see."Glasgow airport has reopened but there are long delays and a large number of flights have been cancelled. Passengers are urged not to come to the airport unless they have received confirmation that their flight will depart.Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took office only days earlier, said: "We are dealing with a long-term threat. It is not going to go away in the next few weeks or months."Mr Brown, who said he will make a statement on the terror alerts to the House of Commons on Monday, added: "We will have to be constantly vigilant. We will have to be alert at all times."The PM said Britain's message to the terrorists must be: "We will not yield, we will not be intimidated and we will not allow anyone to undermine our British way of life.""Irrespective of Iraq, irrespective of Afghanistan, irrespective of what is happening in different parts of the world, we have an international organisation trying to inflict the maximum damage on civilian life in pursuit of a terrorist cause that is totally unacceptable to most people," he said.The series of plots come almost two years since the July 7, 2005 attacks on the London Underground, when four suicide bombers blew themselves up and killed 52 commuters.The London car bombs also appeared to mirror an earlier plan, uncovered in 2004, in which an al-Qaeda operative wanted to detonated gas-filled limousines in London, and another plan in which militants intended to attack the Ministry of Sound nightclub.© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

ITN | July 1, 2007

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