Sunday, July 01, 2007

U.K. Police Make 5th Terror Arrest

GLASGOW, Scotland - British police raided buildings near Glasgow and in central England and made a fifth arrest on Sunday, as the hunt intensified for suspects in the fiery attack on the Scottish city's airport and foiled car bombings in London.

The terrorist threat that Britain faces is "long-term and sustained," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a nationally televised interview. It is clear, he said, "that we are dealing, in general terms, with people who are associated with al-Qaida."

On Friday, police thwarted an apparent plot to set off a coordinated bomb attack in central London when an ambulance crew outside a nightclub spotted smoke coming from a Mercedes that was found to be rigged with explosives. They found a second Mercedes filled with explosives hours later.

And on Saturday, two men rammed a flaming Jeep into the main entrance of Glasgow airport, shattering the glass doors and sparking a raging fire just yards away from people lined up at check-in counters.

Britain raised its terror alert to "critical" - the highest possible level - and the U.S. homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, said Sunday that air marshals would be added to overseas flights.

The two men from the Glasgow attack were in custody Sunday, one of them under guard in Royal Alexandra Hospital after being engulfed in flames after crashing the Jeep Cherokee into the airport..........

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