British anti-terror forces in high gear

British police arrested a fifth suspect Sunday in their frantic nationwide manhunt for the perpetrators of failed bomb attacks in central London and at the Glasgow international airport.

Authorities also carefully searched a suspicious vehicle outside the Scottish hospital where they had taken one of the Glasgow suspects, who suffered severe burns when he drove a Jeep Cherokee into the glass entrance to the main airport terminal Saturday. Security officers also temporarily shut down a portion of Heathrow Airport on Sunday to investigate reports of a suspicious package.

The new arrest came in Liverpool, where a 26-year-old man living in a low-income district was detained and taken to the high-security Paddington Green police station in London. Liverpool police said the arrest was made in connection with the two car bombs discovered Friday in central London.

TV reports said one key suspect remained at large but did not identify him.

New clues were surfacing almost hourly, and links between the London and Glasgow incidents were “becoming clearer,” said counter-terrorism chief Peter Clarke, briefing reporters in the Scottish city.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself a Scotsman, on Sunday urged British residents to continue to remain calm, even as the nation’s terrorism alert rating remained at “critical,” the highest level. In the first TV interview of his premiership he told the BBC One “Sunday AM” program that he recognized the present terrorism threat as “long term and sustained.”

“[But] it’s very important,” he added, “that we the British people send a message to terrorists that they will not be allowed to undermine our British way of life.”

On Sunday night, tens of thousands of people, undeterred by the threat of additional attacks, attended a London concert organized by Princes William and Harry as a tribute to their late mother, Princess Diana, on the day she would have turned 46. The concert, which featured performances by artists such as Duran Duran and Elton John, was guarded by armed police officers.

Armed officers, normally a rarity in Britain, patrolled public places across London on Sunday and are expected to remain on the streets indefinitely.

In his first public comments on the attempted bomb attacks in Britain, President Bush on Sunday praised the “very strong response” by Brown’s government.

“It just goes to show the war against these extremists goes on,” Bush said. “You never know where they may try to strike.”

Security was stepped up at British airports and train stations, and spot checks on cars had begun around the country. In the U.S., Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that increased security measures would take effect.

“We do not have at this point specific credible intelligence that there is ... a particular attack focused in this country,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We do, however, view the summer as a period of special vulnerability.”

In Glasgow, police continued to hold the two men who drove the Jeep loaded with explosives that burst into flames as it hit the doorway to Terminal One of Glasgow Airport. The driver was in critical condition and under guard in the nearby Royal Alexandra Hospital, suffering burns over most of his body. The passenger is in police custody in Glasgow.

The police found no explosives in the suspicious vehicle outside the hospital. The vehicle was blown up in a controlled explosion.

Police in white forensic suits searched properties Sunday morning in the small town of Houston near Glasgow, among them reportedly the home of the arrested men.

According to the first minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, there were indications “that these people had not been in Scotland for any length of time.” Evening TV reports said all the suspects were of Middle Eastern nationalities. Neighbors interviewed by the BBC described them as quiet people who had lived in the neighborhood for a few weeks.

The two people arrested on the M6 highway in northern England early Sunday were described as a man and a woman in their mid-20s.

Liverpool police made the arrest Sunday after closing down the city’s John Lennon Airport on Saturday night, where they investigated a suspicious car.

By Sunday afternoon both Glasgow and Liverpool airports were reopened under tight security with cars prevented from approaching Glasgow Airport. Similar security measures are in force in most other airports nationwide.

At Glasgow Airport, the burned-out shell of the Jeep was finally removed from the shattered doorway of Terminal One on Sunday evening and taken for further forensic tests.

A report Sunday night said that burned canisters of liquid gas had been found inside the vehicle.

In central England, police were carrying out forensic searches of houses in Newcastle-under-Lyme, in the county of Staffordshire. Neighbors told British reporters that the man arrested on the M6 highway lived in one the houses searched and that he was a physician from Lebanon who worked at a local hospital.

Counter-terrorism chief Clarke, who traveled to Glasgow to help coordinate the investigation, called for public support Sunday and was upbeat about the “wider investigation.”

“We are learning a great deal about the people who were involved in the attacks in Glasgow and the attempted attacks in central London. The links between the three attacks are becoming ever clearer,” he said. “We are pursuing many lines of inquiry, and I am confident, absolutely confident that in the coming days and weeks we will be able to gain a thorough understanding of the methods used by the terrorists and the way in which they planned their attacks and the network to which they belong.”

The fast-moving investigation has been propelled partly by intelligence recovered from a mobile phone that assailants tried to use as a remote triggering device in a car bomb left outside a London nightclub, officials said Sunday.

The Mercedes failed to explode when the assailants called the mobile phone rigged to propane- and gasoline-based bombs, officials said. That gave the police crucial leads, as did images from security cameras and evidence gathered from the case in Glasgow.

Investigators believe the four men and a woman arrested over the weekend include significant players in the two plots, officials said.

Although the assailants made apparent mistakes that undermined both attacks, police were alarmed at how close they came to pulling off deadly bombings in a country where security forces have been on high alert during the last several years.

“We have been incredibly lucky twice,” a British security official said Sunday.

Investigators believe the assailants in London left the two explosives-packed Mercedeses near a nightclub in a plan to set off a first explosion, draw emergency services and spectators to the scene, and then set off the second one to heighten casualties and confusion, the official said.

The method of staggered bombings is often used by insurgents in Baghdad and has also been employed by groups such as violent Basque separatists in Spain.

Mobile phones have been used as remote detonators in cases such as the 2004 Madrid train bombings. But the attackers in London ended up leaving police a valuable phone trail when their calls failed to set off the bomb.

Investigators believe the suspects arrested on the highway had direct links to the London plot, sources close to the investigation said. And the propane cylinders found in the two cars in London and the Jeep used to ram Glasgow Airport were almost identical, sources said.

The Glasgow attack does not appear to have been well planned, officials and analysts said. “I am not sure how much thought went into that,” the security official said.

The Glasgow attackers apparently miscalculated in their attempt to cause a massive explosion by pouring gasoline on the propane tanks, said Sajjan Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation.

Gohel said it would be key to determine whether the suspects received training and direction from networks overseas, whether core Al Qaeda remnants in Pakistan as in past cases or groups in other hot spots such as Iraq or North Africa. There is also intense speculation about whether any of the suspects turned up in previous investigations or are among a number of accused extremists who have been at large after eluding “control orders” that require them to be monitored by police.

British police have warned for some time that car bombs were among their top fears. The events of the last few days have spread that concern beyond Britain.

“It sets a dangerous precedent for the rest of Europe,” Gohel said.

On Sunday night, security officials emphasized that they would do whatever possible to ensure public safety.

Transport police chief Andy Trotter announced from a central London station that British Transport Police would “do everything we possibly can to make people safe in their journeys to work tomorrow across the country.”

Since last August when security forces uncovered a plot to blow up transatlantic planes, London airports and most other British airports have caused huge delays to plane travelers with strict baggage regulations and lengthy security checks.

At the same time, Clarke acknowledged that no security measures could ensure safety. “One can never guarantee that there will not be more attacks,” he said.

rotella@latimes.com

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Stobart reported from London and Rotella from New York.