GLASGOW, June 30: Two men rammed a Jeep Cherokee spouting a trail of flames into the main terminal of Glasgow airport on Saturday, crashing into the glass doors at the entrance, witnesses said. There were no reports of casualties.
Police wrestled the driver and a passenger, both described as South Asian, to the ground, arresting them and taking one to the hospital. Witnesses said one of the men was engulfed in fire and spoke “gibberish” as an official used a fire extinguisher to douse the flames.The green SUV barrelled towards the building at full speed shortly after 3pm, hitting security barriers before crashing into the doors and exploding, witnesses said.
Hundreds fled screaming from the building as one of the men poured gasoline over the SUV as the driver tried to force the Jeep further inside the terminal, witness Lynsey McBean said.
Scotland’s largest airport was evacuated and all flights suspended. Firefighters were tackling flames that had consumed the Jeep — reduced to a charred hulk — and spread to the terminal building.
Saturday was the first day of summer vacation for Glasgow schools, and the airport was bustling with families heading out on holiday.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is Scottish, was holding a meeting of the government crisis committee late on 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 a thwarted plot to bomb central London on Friday but “are keeping an open mind,” the official said.
He said there had been no intelligence warning of a potential plan to attack Scotland, but stressed Britain’s threat level remained at severe, meaning attacks are likely.
Police and MI5 would be examining any potential links between the three incidents in London and Scotland, as they all involved vehicles, the official said — stressing there were no confirmed connections.
Scottish police did not say whether the SUV that struck the airport was carrying explosives.
On Friday, Police in London discovered explosives packed into a Mercedes near Piccadilly Circus and another Mercedes parked nearby and towed to a lot near Hyde Park. Both bombs were defused before they could explode.
“One has to conclude... these are linked,” Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former head of Britain’s joint intelligence committee, told Sky News television. “This is a very young government, and we may yet see further attacks. ... We are seeing a pattern of attack in the early days of a new government.”
US President George W. Bush also was being kept updated, the White House said.—AP
