Terror: fresh Australian raids

Raids have been carried out at two Western Australia hospitals in relation to the failed bombing attacks in London and Glasgow Airport.Eight people with connections to the medical profession are in police custody including six held at London's high security Paddington Green police station and one in Australia. A seventh suspect is critically ill in a Scottish hospital.None have so far been charged in connection with two unexploded London car bombs and a botched attack on Glasgow airport in Scotland using a fuel-laden jeep, which burst into flames.In Australia, Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said searches took place at hospitals in Perth and the gold mining city of Kalgoorlie. Four Indian doctors were interviewed and released, while another Indian doctor in New South Wales state is being investigated.Mr Keelty said: "We've seized similar material to what we have seized in Queensland."Police in the country have been granted extra time to question Dr Mohamed Haneef, 27, who was detained at Brisbane airport on Monday as he tried to leave the country. A UK counter-terrorism detective has flown to Brisbane to assist.Dr Haneef, who trained as a doctor in his native India arrived in Australia in September 2006 after working at the Halton Hospital in Runcorn, Cheshire, where another suspect, relative and childhood friend, Dr Sabeel Ahmed, 26, is also employed.Police are examining around 31,000 files on Dr Haneef's laptop PC and a SIM card left with Dr Ahmed, who was arrested last Sunday in the Lime Street area of Liverpool and is thought to be the brother of Kafeel Ahmed who was badly burned in the airport attack.Also known as Khalid Ahmed, he has now been transferred to a specialist burns unit at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and remains under armed guard as further details of his background emerge.The 27-year-old from Bangalore, India, doused himself in petrol and set light to himself in the alleged attack on June 30. He was taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in nearby Paisley suffering from 90 per cent burns.The alleged passenger in the Jeep, Dr Bilal Abdulla, who had worked at the Royal Alexandra Hospital as a doctor, was also arrested.It was initially thought that Ahmed was a medical doctor, however it emerged on Friday that he has a doctorate in aeronautical engineering and had studied at Queen's University in Belfast and Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge.Both Ahmed brothers had applied to work in Western Australia but were rejected over concerns about their references.Police in London are questioning Dr Ahmed, Dr Abdulla, Dr Mohammed Asha, 26, of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, and his wife, Marwa Asha, a laboratory researcher, who were arrested on the M6 in Cheshire on June 30.Two men arrested on July 2 by Strathclyde Police at the Royal Alexandra Hospital are also being held at the high security police station.Meanwhile, police would not confirm reports that they had found a suicide note in the wreckage of the jeep or that NHS syringes had been used in the car bombs.And some reports claim that four of the suspects met in Cambridge in 2005, suggesting the group might have been formed then.Dr Abdulla lived in Cambridge, while Dr Asha once worked at the city's Addenbrooke's Hospital. It is also understood that Mr Ahmed worked as a research student at Anglia Ruskin University, which has campuses in Cambridge and Chelmsford, Essex.The Metropolitan Police confirmed that one property in the city has been searched as part of the investigation into the weekend attacks.A coalition of Muslim groups, calling itself Muslims United, has taken out newspaper advertisements condemning the recent attempted bomb attacks as contrary to the teachings of Islam.Borrowing a phrase from British opponents of the Iraq war, the campaign is dubbed: "Not in Our name."© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

ITN | July 6, 2007

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