One of those arrested is a Jordanian doctor by the name of Mohammed Asha, according to his father. In Jordan, Jameel Asha, a Jordanian citizen of Palestinian background, told NEWSWEEK’s Ranya Kadri in an interview he’s convinced police have the wrong person. “It’s impossible for my son to do this,” he said. “He has no time but to study. I know my son and he’s not into these things.” Mohammed Asha, 26, who has been described as a neurologist at North Staffordshire Hospital near Newcastle-Under-Lyme, was arrested on the M6 motorway in Cheshire on Saturday night along with a woman traveling with him.
The police have not identified any of those arrested because they say they do not want to jeopardize the investigation. Confusingly, the doctor identified as a Jordanian has been described in some news reports variously as an Iraqi Kurd and a Saudi. According to some media reports, one of the men who had been traveling in the SUV at Glasgow Airport is also a medical doctor, trained in Iraq. His identity could not be independently confirmed.
Officially, the police in London and Glasgow have said very little about the twin cases–except to say they are linked and that seven arrests have been made. Unofficially, United States and British officials say the available evidence suggests that Al Qaeda at least inspired the would-be London and Glasgow bombers, though it’s still too early to tell how close the connection might be between the U.K. plotters and what remains of the international terror network led by Osama bin Laden and his chief sidekick, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
An American official who is following the investigation noted that in the past Al Qaeda’s central command has come forward to claim credit for the bin Laden network’s most vicious atrocities, such as the 9/11 attacks and the London mass transit bombings of July 7, 2005. However, in the case of both of those incidents, the Al Qaeda claims of credit surfaced some time after the event. (In the London bombings, Al Qaeda claimed credit by distributing a “martyrdom video” featuring the leader of the 7/ 7 bombing team.)
So far, the U.S. official said, there has been no claim of credit by Al Qaeda or affiliates credibly linked to the terror group’s central command. This is one reason why American officials are hesitating to rush to attribute the London and Glasgow plots to the bin Laden network, especially as in some recent cases, Al Qaeda has been quite eager to claim credit for terror attacks in the West even if the bin Laden network’s direct involvement appeared dubious.
A U.K. official said investigators are studying the possibility of a connection between Al Qaeda in Iraq and the failed London and Scottish plots. The Iraq group, founded by the late Jordanian terror kingpin Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, united various violent Islamic factions in Iraq under a single commander–initially Zarqawi, who was killed in Iraq last year–who then pledged the group’s allegiance to bin Laden, though the relationship between the Iraqi terror network and bin Laden’s fugitive high command is regarded as more philosophical and political than operational.
One of the reasons to suspect a possible link between the foiled U.K. attacks and Al Qaeda in Iraq, the U.K. official indicated, is that the dud bombs that the plotters built appear similar in design to homemade bombs which have been linked to the Iraqi Al Qaeda branch. The U.S. official monitoring the British investigation indicated that the Jeep which burst into flames on Saturday at Glasgow Airport is believed to have contained a nail-gasoline-gas-canister bomb similar to the unexploded bombs recovered near Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus in London late last week. Two officials close to the investigation said the theory is that one of the suspects who drove the Glasgow bomb into the airport terminal building got out of the car and, according to eyewitnesses, tried to set himself on fire after first trying, and apparently failing, to set off a bomb which should have blown up the whole vehicle and everyone nearby.
U.S. officials say they are monitoring the British investigation closely, but still have no specific information indicating that any terror attack is imminent against any targets inside America. Other European intelligence and law-enforcement agencies are also on edge, with counterterrorism officials in Germany particularly concerned about possible plots on their territory against U.S. or German targets. Meanwhile, an explosion on Monday killed at least seven people at a tourist site in Yemen, a Middle Eastern country waging its own battle against Islamic extremists. Six of the dead were reported to be Spanish tourists; the seventh was a Yemeni. Yemeni security sources told Reuters that they believed Al Qaeda, which has demanded the release of militants jailed in the country, could have been behind the attack.
For now, the British investigation is focused on the evidence obtained and the arrests made. The elder Asha described his son Mohammed as a slight, nonathletic youth, married, with a son, Anas, who is 2 ½ years old. Jameel Asha said his son was devout, but not fanatically religious. Mohammed attended the Jubilee School in Amman, a secondary school established by Queen Noor for gifted children. He graduated from the class of 1998 with the third-highest academic ranking in Jordan. He went on to the prestigious medical school at Jordan University on full scholarship and did his internship there as well. In 2005, according to his family, he traveled to Britain, to work as a doctor and continue his studies. His son and wife, Marwa Dana, 27, a lab technician and high school sweetheart whom he married in 2004, accompanied him. “He was no more religious than normal,” Jameel said of his son. “He didn’t have time for religion. All he did was study.”
