Brisbane police make UK terror arrest

Media reports say that police in Brisbane have reportedly made an eighth arrest in connection with the failed UK terror attacks and car bombings in London and the attack on Glasgow Airport.

It is reported that a counterterrorism team arrested a 27-year-old doctor at Brisbane International Airport late yesterday as he tried to leave the country and is searching properties in the state of Queensland, Attorney General Philip Ruddock told reporters today.

The man, who is a resident in Australia though not an Australian citizen, worked as a registrar at the Gold Coast hospital in Queensland, Ruddock added. The terrorist threat to Australia remains “medium,” he added.

Ruddock revealed the man was a doctor employed as a registrar at Gold Coast hospital with Queensland Premier Peter Beattie confirming the 27-year-old’s arrest at Brisbane International Airport last night but said there was no direct threat to Brisbane.

He is not an Australian citizen but is “resident” here, Mr Ruddock said, adding that he could have been living in Australia for up to a year.

“The individual concerned was seeking to leave Australia and I understand did not have a return ticket,” Mr Ruddock said.

Australia would not be raising its terror threat level because it had no information a specific attack was planned, he said.

“The only other advice that I can give you is that while these matters are obviously of concern, there is no information that suggests the terror alert at medium should be varied,” he said.

“And as I’ve said over the last day or so, when I use those words I use them very deliberately because what it means is that while a terrorist attack could certainly be possible in Australia, we have no specific information about any such planned action here.”

Federal Police Commissioner Bill Keelty said the man was arrested after British police contacted Australian authorities over the weekend with information.

It is understood the Gold Coast Hospital and the residence where the man had been living are now being searched by counter-terrorism police.

“The matter is in hand, the person has been detained and search warrants have been executed,” Mr Keelty said.

“We have been working with the UK police since the bombing and information was received over the weekend.”  “The man was not on an international watch list.”

Premier Beattie said the man was arrested at Brisbane Airport at 11pm last night by a counter-terrorism team comprising Queensland police and Australian Federal Police officers at the Brisbane International Airport attempting to leave Australia.

“Queenslanders, I just want to say, need to be calm about this,” Mr Beattie said.

“We are not aware of any threat to any building or any activity in Queensland at all, so the threat remains as it was prior to this arrest.”

British police have also announced the man’s arrest but so far have only said he has been held at an undisclosed location in connection with the investigation into the incidents in London and Glasgow.

Meanwhile, two Arab doctors, both licensed to work in Britain, are among eight people arrested in connection with two failed London car bombs and an attack on a Scottish airport, a police source said today.

The source named Bilal Abdulla, who qualified as a doctor in Baghdad in 2004, as one of the men held after ramming a jeep into a Glasgow airport terminal and setting it alight in a spectacular fireball on Saturday.

Mohammed Asha, 26, a second doctor who qualified in Jordan the same year, was arrested with his wife on Saturday evening when unmarked police cars blocked a motorway in northern England to stop their car.

Scotland Yard police declined to comment on a report on the website Muslim News that another suspect, arrested in Liverpool, was also a doctor, from India.

British authorities say the Glasgow attack and the London bombs are linked, and suspect radical Islamists of being behind them.

None of the suspects has been charged, and police have up to four weeks to question them.

A security source said there was no indication the alleged plot involved bioterrorism or required specialist medical knowledge.

The source declined to discuss the individuals arrested but said that in previous investigations “we have seen people who are well educated, from good middle-class backgrounds. I don’t think it’s a surprise.”

Britain’s National Health Service employs large numbers of foreign doctors.

A spokeswoman for the General Medical Council, with whom both Abdulla and Asha are registered to work in Britain, said: “We are in contact with the police and will be cooperating with them where it’s appropriate to do so.”

Foreign doctors coming to Britain must pass written tests and a clinical examination, and inquiries are also made with their home universities.

“We validate your medical qualifications with the university where you studied, we validate your identity, we go through a series of checks,” spokeswoman Tanya Royer said.

Successful applicants gain ‘limited registration’, entitling them to work as junior doctors in Britain typically for six months to one year, with a maximum of five years, she said.

Royer said security vetting would be an issue for Britain’s Home Office, which has required visas only since last year for foreign doctors coming to work in the country.

A switchboard operator at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, near Scotland’s biggest city Glasgow, said Abdulla worked there. Media reports said Asha worked as a neurologist at North Staffordshire Hospital in central England.

Police were carrying out searches at both sites today.

Asha’s father Jameel said his son was a good Muslim who had never shown any interest in political Islam.  “He prayed like any Muslim but was not a fanatic,” he said in Jordan, where Mohammed was raised, having been born in Saudi Arabia.

He said Mohammed and his wife arrived in Britain in late 2004 and had a son, Anas, who was nearly 18 months old.

Seven men and one woman are now in custody in connection with the incidents June 30 in Glasgow and June 29 in London.

Two men were arrested at Glasgow airport after their Jeep Cherokee, filled with flammable material, rammed into a terminal entrance and caught fire on impact. One was hospitalized for burns.

The Glasgow attack came as police were conducting one of their biggest manhunts after dismantling two car bombs made from gas canisters, gasoline and nails left in the heart of London’s West End shopping and theater district.

Report by The Mole from various media sources

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