UK police arrest 2 after London, Glasgow incidents

London, July 1: British police said today they had arrested two people in northern England in connection with an attempted car bombing in London and an incident at Glasgow airport in which a car was rammed into the building.

''Police have this evening arrested two people in connection with events in London and Scotland on the 29th and 30th of June,'' London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

The arrests were made in the county of Cheshire by counter-terrorism officers, the statement said.

Two men rammed a petrol-filled, four-wheel-drive vehicle into Glasgow airport on Saturday in what police called a terrorist attack. The men were arrested and one was taken to a hospital in critical condition with burns.

The attack came barely 36 hours after police thwarted a possible al Qaeda plot in London in which two cars loaded with fuel, gas canisters and nails were left in the centre of the capital poised to detonate.

A caller to BBC television said he had been in a car on a motorway in Cheshire when traffic had been brought to a halt by unmarked police cars in all three lanes.

The man, named as Peter Whitehead, said he saw a woman in what he called Muslim dress and two men in suits step out of a car which had pulled to the side of the motorway.

The Metropolitan Police said no further details of the arrests were available.

Britain's Home Office announced yesterday it had raised the national security alert level to ''critical,'' the highest ranking and one which indicates further attacks are expected imminently.

Reuters

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