Picture of the Suspects

July 2, 2007 — -- Police were apparently already investigating Dr. Bilal Abdullah Saturday morning, hours before he was caught crashing a Jeep into Glasgow's Airport as part of the failed terror plot in Scotland.

He and another man rammed a flaming car into the airport's main terminal Saturday, just one day after two cars packed with explosives were found in London.

The three vehicles are considered part of the same terror plot, sending authorities on an intense international manhunt for suspects in the case. Eight suspects have been arrested so far -- with the eighth person detained in Brisbane, Australia.

Abdullah's real estate agent, Daniel Gardiner, said he was contacted Saturday morning, before the Glasgow attack, for information about his client whom he described as a "professional person."

"We use vigorous credit referencing and everything checked out absolutely fine," said Gardiner, who helped Abdullah sign a six-month lease on a house two miles from Glasgow airport in April.

Abdullah finished medical school three years ago in Baghdad and then moved to Britain, where he aroused little suspicion among his neighbors.

One neighbor commented the only time they saw Abdullah was on a Saturday morning around 8 a.m., when "there was a man washing his Jeep; that was it."

Police also searched the home of Dr. Mohammad Asha on Monday in northern England, where he lived while working as a neurologist at a local hospital. Asha was raised and educated in Jordan, according to authorities.

Today, Asha's parents insisted he had nothing to do with the foiled plots.

His father said Asha was interested only in his studies and was not political. He also described his son as religious but not an Islamic extremist.

Asha married in 2004 and moved with his wife to England the following year to practice medicine. They have both been arrested, and neighbors said they rarely saw them.

"My wife's seen the lady involved and she describes her as being dressed head to foot in a burkha," neighbor Andy Turner said. "My wife said they had a 2-year-old," he added.

Now, investigators appear to be on the trail of more foreign-born doctors, including men arrested at the same hospital where Abdullah worked. Nearly one in three doctors currently working in Britain is foreign-born or foreign-educated.

"Al Qaeda will often recruit educated, Westernized individuals who can move to the West and very easily blend into the fabric of society," said Sajjan Gohal of the Asia Pacific Foundation.

While several of the suspects in this case appear to have infiltrated British society, they may have also had connections well beyond the United Kingdom, with the eighth suspect arrested in Australia late Monday.