Flaming SUV Rammed Into Glasgow Airport
The third terrorist incident in the UK in three days:
A burning car has been rammed into the terminal building of Glasgow Airport in Scotland, heightening terrorism fears with the UK already on alert over the discovery of two cars loaded with explosive materials in London.
Police and witnesses described an SUV-style vehicle in flames being driven at full speed towards the building.
Two people were arrested at the scene, police said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear whether there were any injuries, although unconfirmed witness reports described a man on fire at the scene.
And there have been TWO ARRESTS, the AP’s latest story says:
Two men rammed a flaming Jeep Cherokee into the main terminal of Glasgow airport Saturday, crashing into the glass doors at the entrance in what appeared to be the third attempted terror attack on Britain in two days, witnesses said. Police wrestled the two men to the ground – one of them engulfed in flames – arresting both and taking one to the hospital.
There were no reports of injuries but the airport – Scotland’s largest – was evacuated and all flights suspended, a day after British police thwarted a plot to bomb central London, discovering two cars abandoned with loads of gasoline, gas canisters and nails. Hundreds fled screaming from the terminal as one of the men poured gasoline over the Jeep and tried to force it further inside the terminal, one witness said.
“One has to conclude … these are linked,” Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former head of Britain’s joint intelligence committee, told Sky News. “This is a very young government, and we may yet see further attacks.”
Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, a Scot who took office only Wednesday, was holding a meeting of the government crisis committee later Saturday and was being kept updated by officials, Downing Street said.
A British government security official said the incident was being treated as “possibly terrorist related at this stage.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
Security officials had no direct intelligence linking the incident to the thwarted plot to bomb London but “are keeping an open mind,” the official said.
It’s a bit to early lin this story to know all the details — but it means the new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gets no honeymoon as his government has to move swiftly to see if there are any links between these incidents — and to find out whether more attacks are in the offing.
13 Responses to “Flaming SUV Rammed Into Glasgow Airport”
the price of involvement in the mess in Mesopotamia. alas, we have bought ourselves a peck of trouble
Yes, of course, it is our fault. God forbid we blame the actual terrorists.
That assumes that all al-Qaeda attacks are caused by the invasion of Iraq.
That assumption seems completely unjustified in light of the fact that al-Qaeda planned and carried out attacks long before 2003. Al-Qaeda’s “declaration of war” was in 1996 and the organization carried out major attacks in 1998, 2000, and 2001 — well before the “involvement in the mess in Mesopotamia”.
Yes, Austin, it has always seemed odd to me how some people assume that violence is natural and amoral from al-Qaeda and that those individuals only carry it out when something we do “makes” them do it.
It is similar to a much older argument, when Noam Chomsky initially argued that the Khmer Rogue authors of the “killing fields” in Cambodia were a fiction concocted by pro-war imperialists and, after that position became untenable, shifted his argument to saying that they were only brutal killers because they had been driven to do so by U.S. policy towards the region. Replace “Khmer Rouge” with “al-Qaeda”, and the same argument sums up many of the current theories from certain sectors about what causes terrorist attacks.
It’s weird to observe such advocates arguing, in effect, that only the United States has moral agency and that everyone else in the world are just cogs in a machine powered by the American devil.
CNN reports that the burned suspect has died.
Gee, something I can agree with the more conservative writers here about. The only thing the mess in Iraq has contributed to Islamic terrorism is a recruiting point. Then of course they decide to start murdering lots of Muslims and begin to lose that point. It has yet to be determined where the final balance of that situation will lie.
Jim, that point of agreement is an essential precondition to moving the discussion about the war in Iraq AND the war against al-Qaeda past the merely partisan to towards the goal of coming up with something that can be done AFTER Jan. 20th, 2009.
CNN is wrong. The second suspect is in critical condition but alive. HOWEVER…there are unconfirmed reports of a third suspect involved, found dead inside the Jeep.
London Terror Plot Update: Cars, Bombs and Airport
Other reactions, from the far left liberals leave me astounded at their agilty to manage to do the impossible and stick their heads evern FARTHER up there asses than normal. (QUITE A FEAT). I am impressed.
Thanks Tully! Reportedly, someone may have been wearing a suicide belt.
Jason: “…moving the discussion about the war in Iraq AND the war against al-Qaeda past the merely partisan to…”
Agreed, I’m sick of the partisan bickering from both sides. Both are sticking their fingers in their ear and refusing to listen.
Part of ‘moving the discussion forward’ instead of bickereing would need to be restraint from misrepresenting the meaning of other’s comments.
A number of analysts have speculated that this may be an effort to influence Britain’s new government in the manner of what happened in Spain. That seems like a fairly reasonable, if unoriginal, observation. Just mentioning Iraq and terrorists in the same sentence is not the same as saying who is primarily to blame.
Thank you domajot. It looks like my comment brought on this bout of flaming. Somehow, that comment was misrepresented as me being part of the mythical “blame America” movement. That is completely untrue. My suggestion is simply this: when one stirs up a hornet’s nest, one increases the likelihood of being stung by hornets. I am not blaming anyone for the fact that hornets sting, but these particular hornets are stinging those who are waging war against Arabs in Iraq. Spain pulled out of that war and surprise! No more terrorist attacks in Spain.
As to the suggestion that some unspecified people think killing by Al Qaeda is natural and amoral, I guess that’s supposed to apply to me as well. Not true. I believe some young Muslims have been brainwashed to believe that it is righteous and moral to kill Americans, Brits and Australians. That’s shocking; but understandable. After all, some pretty well-educated Americans have been brainwashed to believe that it’s righteous and moral to cage, torture, rape and kill Arabs. It’s wrong for them. It’s wrong for us. Peace, flamers.