As investigations continue into the attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow on Friday and Saturday, news that several doctors are among the nine suspects has stunned medical professionals in Britain and Australia.
Staff at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Scotland were horrified to learn that one of the hospital’s doctors was arrested at Glasgow Airport on Saturday afternoon after a Jeep in which he was a passenger ploughed into the entrance of the airport’s main terminal and was then set alight, causing a series of explosions.
Dr Bilal Talal Samad Abdullah, a diabetes specialist at the hospital, gained his medical qualifications in Baghdad in 2004 and registered to work as a doctor in the UK in 2006. He lived in Houston, a small village near Glasgow, and was described as a “devout Muslim” by fellow hospital staff.
“I suppose the idea that there might be somebody amongst us who would perpetrate an act like this is certainly pretty alarming,” said Dr Murray Stewart of the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
Meanwhile, police have conducted a number of controlled explosions on a suspicious vehicle parked outside the hospital, where the driver of the Jeep is being treated for serious burns to 90 percent of his body. He has not yet been identified and remains in critical condition, under armed police guard.
The two men are also suspected of setting up the failed car bombings in central London on Friday.
The would-be London bombers tried to set off explosives in two Mercedes parked in the London night-life district by ringing mobile phones left in the cars. When the explosives – gasoline filled containers, gas cylinders and propane tanks – failed to detonate, the phones were left intact and their call histories used to lead police to a number of suspects including Dr Mohammed Jamil Abdelkader Asha.
Dr Asha, 26, was arrested on the M6 motorway in Cheshire on Saturday evening. He was born in Saudi Arabia into a Palestinian family who migrated to Jordan in 1991. He attended the Jubilee School for gifted children in Amman and later scored the third highest grade on his university entrance exam for medicine at the University of Jordan, where he graduated in 2004. The vice-dean of the university described him as a “top scholar”.
Dr Asha served his post-qualification internship in neurology at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford in the UK. Before his arrest, he worked as a neurologist at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent and lived with his wife and 2 year-old son in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Dr Asha’s wife, Marwah Dana Asha, was arrested with him on Saturday evening. She also attended Jubilee School in Amman, where she met Dr Asha, and later trained as a laboratory researcher at the University of Science and Technology in northern Jordan.
Following a tip-off from British investigators, Dr Mohammed Haneef, 27, was arrested in Australia on Monday night at Brisbane Airport, 370 miles north of Sydney. He is believed to be an Indian national who worked at Halton Hospital in Cheshire, England before he began working in Australia at the Gold Coast Hospital in Queensland in 2006. His colleagues at the Gold Coast Hospital described him as “a model citizen with excellent references”. Dr Haneef was about to board a plane to India on a one-way ticket when he was arrested on Monday.
Another doctor believed to be a foreign national is also being questioned by federal police in Australia. He has not yet been identified.
“At this point, there is no suggestion in relation to the second doctor,” said Queensland Premier Peter Beattie. "We do not know of any link the second doctor may have had with anyone.”
Three remaining suspects currently in British police custody have not yet been identified. One is a 26 year-old doctor from India who was arrested in Liverpool on Saturday night. There are reports that he may have been arrested by mistake, after police confused him with Dr Haneef in Australia.
The other two remaining suspects, who are 25 and 28 years of age, are believed to be medical students at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Scotland.
Medical authorities in the UK and Australia have moved quickly to condemn the involvement of doctors in any terrorist activities.
“The first rule of the Hippocratic oath is just do no harm,” said Edwin Borman, chairman of the international committee of the British Medical Association. “Clearly the involvement of any medical professional in anything that goes beyond that would be a betrayal not only of society but of their own profession.”
Dr Ross Cartmill, president of the Queensland Australian Medical Association, said: “Terrorist activities can occur anywhere and by anybody. But if doctors are involved, then clearly I express my disappointment. Certainly it’s not what you expect of doctors.”
Although police have not confirmed that there is clear evidence to link the attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow to al Qaeda, some terrorism experts say that the recruitment of professionals is one of the organization’s known tactics.
Sajjan Gohel, Director of International Security for the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation, a counter-terrorism think tank, said: “Al Qaeda wants to pick up individuals that are well educated, that have the Western social skills, and the ability to blend into the civilian fabric of society because then it gives them an easier chance to orchestrate the mass casualty attack.”
With the UK still on ‘critical’ alert, Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said that police will soon identify the terrorist cell that tried to carry out the bombings, as well as their methods and any links they have to other groups.
“It is no exaggeration to say that new information is coming to light hour by hour,” he said. “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, of the way in which they planned their attacks, and of the network to which they belong.”
My upcoming book, "Jihad and American Medicine" (Greenwood Publishing Group, Fall '07), predicts the UK Doctor Terrorists and more. I discuss the steps necessary to re-engineer our health system to decrease medical errors, minimize the risk of terrorist infiltration and attack, and save lives. The healthcare setting is ripe for the abuse of dangerous substances, drugs, chemicals, biological and nuclear materials. We must do more as a nation!
To learn more, see www.JihadandAmericanMedicine.com
Written by Adam F. Dorin, M.D., MBA
on 7/14/2007
because people, are well, kindhearted, you just don't know who you are inviting into your home (country). just a in the u.s., folks that do not want to assimilate into our country's way of life, should not be allowed to live here or in england. you cannot be nice to everyone, even if it means that they are going to call you a bigot. well, with the way the world is going, we need to have more bigots, because our countries will be safer. we also need to check security in and out of our countries. they are getting in through borders that should not be allowed in our countries. we are letting those that want the demise of the world, have it their own way, but not like burger king. the u.s. is allowing the same thing to happen because a few believe that it is nice to be nice to people. well i say not so. not if they are going to blow us up and we won't do anything to stop it. if the physicians are doing this to you, what next. their adgenda is to rule but from within a country. they don't have to fight their way in because we are giving it to them on a silver platter. they don't care about anyone. we need to turn around, and send them back to where they came from. and this business with keeping terrorism in the middle east, baloney. the terrorism is right under our noses. i have to stop because i am getting angrier. we should not have to put up with terrorists no matter how nice they say they are. they may come to our countries under the guise of wanting to make a new life for themselves and their families. dont't you beleive it for one minute.
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