BRITAIN/Investigations:An eighth suspect connected to the failed car bombs in London and Scotland has been arrested, the British police said last night. The man was arrested "at an undisclosed location", the police said in a statement but did not confirm reports that the arrest had taken place abroad.
Two doctors working in British hospitals are among the eight people being held by police investigating the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow.
Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi doctor, is believed to have been in the passenger seat of the Jeep Cherokee that went up in flames as it was rammed into the doors of Glasgow airport's main terminal building on Saturday. He was arrested shortly afterwards.
Abdulla graduated in Baghdad in 2004 and registered in Britain last August, a General Medical Council spokeswoman said. It is believed he was employed as a locum at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, just 3km (two miles) from the airport where he was arrested.
The other man arrested at Glasgow airport at the weekend suffered severe burns and remains in a critical condition at the Royal Alexandra where he is under armed police guard.
The Glasgow incident occurred following the discovery of two Mercedes cars, packed with gas cylinders, petrol and nails, in central London on Friday. Detectives are linking the failed bombings, and Britain's terror alert system has been raised to its highest level.
The other detained medic is Mohammed Asha (26), a Palestinian who holds Jordanian nationality.
He is reported to have lived and worked in Britain for the past two years, most recently as a junior doctor at the North Staffordshire hospital in Stoke-on-Trent.
Asha was arrested with a 27-year-old woman believed to be his wife on the M6 motorway in Cheshire on Saturday.
The couple's car was corralled on to the hard shoulder by several unmarked police cars as they drove north from their home in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Staffordshire.Police in London say they have been granted until Saturday to question the pair, along with a 26-year-old man arrested in Liverpool. All three are being questioned at Paddington Green police station in west London.
Asha's house was searched by police yesterday, along with a second address in the town. His office at the hospital was also searched.
Asha's father, Jamil, told reporters in the Jordanian capital Amman that his son "is incapable of such acts". He called on the Jordanian government to intervene and secure his son's release.
"Not all Arabs are terrorists," he added.
A total of eight people are being held in connection with the failed attacks. None is thought to be British.
The sixth and seventh suspects, men aged 28 and 25, were arrested last night in the Paisley area. Soon afterwards, bomb squad officers carried out a controlled explosion on a vehicle parked near the doctors' accommodation block at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
Police are understood to be following leads from mobile phone records, in addition to examining forensic evidence left in the three vehicles.
Hours of CCTV footage are also being sifted through.
Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that officers investigating the foiled London attacks discovered information about potential suspects in Glasgow before the airport was targeted.
Daniel Gardiner, director of a Paisley-based letting agency that had rented a property to one of the men arrested, said detectives contacted his office shortly before the incident at the airport