Controlled blasts at Glasgow hospital

[Wakka]

GLASGOW, Scotland (CNN) A bomb disposal unit has performed at least two controlled explosions on a suspicious device at a hospital where one of the suspects in Saturday's Glasgow airport attack is being treated. A CNN crew stationed at the the Royal Alexandra Hospital in the Paisley area of the Scottish city heard two blasts, which occurred about an hour after a bomb disposal truck was spotted outside the medical facility.It is not clear what prompted the alert. A road around the hospital has been blocked and some staff members have been evacuated.The hospital is treating one of the bomb suspects. He is in critical condition with severe burns.Sources say one of the two suspects behind the Glasgow attack works as a doctor at Royal Alexandra, although it is not clear which one.On Sunday -- for reasons that remain unclear -- police conducted a controlled explosion of a vehicle in the hospital's parking lot. Police said there was no indication the vehicle contained any explosives.Shortly after the suspect was admitted following Saturday's attack, police confiscated a suspicious item from his body and called for a partial evacuation of the hospital. Police later said the device was not believed to be an explosive Authorities suspect the two men who rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the airport on Saturday are the same people who parked two car bombs in central London a day earlier, security sources said.The government said on Monday that police had searched at least 19 locations for evidence. The searches were part of "a fast-moving investigation" in which seven suspects had been detained, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told the House of Commons.Those arrested include the two men suspected of carrying out the terror plot, who were being tracked by police even before the attack on Glasgow's airport, sources said.It is believed that the two suspects shared a rental house on Neuk Crescent Street in the small Scottish village of Houston -- about two miles from Glasgow's airport.Police searching the house would not provide any details about who lived there or why it is part of the investigation.No one else was seriously hurt in Saturday's incident at Glasgow. Police said the car bombs in London -- which were packed with fuel and nails -- could have killed hundreds if they had been set off.Police have declined to identify any of the suspects, but British television and newspapers identified one who was arrested on the M6 motorway as Mohammed Asha.The doctor is believed to work at the North Staffordshire Hospital, near the Midlands town of Newcastle-under-Lyme, where police searched a house on Sunday. The hospital refused to comment.Asha is a Jordanian-educated physician who moved to England with his family two years ago, according to a source in Jordan.In Jordan, Asha's brother Ahmed told The Associated Press he had heard the media reports and said his 26-year-old sibling "is not a Muslim extremist, and he's not a fanatic."The other suspect has been identified as Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla, a source with knowledge of the investigation said Monday. British police and security sources told CNN they believed the two car bombs found in London on Friday were set to be remotely triggered, possibly by mobile phones, but failed to detonate.The attack at Scotland's busiest airport came 36 hours after two car bombs loaded with fuel, gas canisters and nails were found in central London primed to detonate.Investigators continue to sift through thousands of hours of closed-circuit television footage taken outside Glasgow's airport and near the locations where the car bombs were found in London.In London, police were examining two cars filled with fuel, gas canisters and nails and studying CCTV footage for clues about the identities of those behind a suspected terrorist plot that could have killed hundreds.Those who witnessed the flaming Jeep Cherokee smash into the airport Saturday said one of the passengers was shouting "Allah" as he fought with police and a second man set himself on fire.Airport worker John Smitten, who ran to help police in the aftermath of the crash, said the second man who was "covered head-to-toe in flames" also tried to fight policemen after a taxi driver used a water hose to put out the fire.Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday said Britons needed to realize the terrorism threat their country faced was "long-term and sustained" and they must remain "constantly vigilant" about security.Britain raised its terror alert status to the highest level of "critical," indicating an attack was imminent and the country's prime minister warned of dangers to come.But Brown, in office less than a week, said in a TV interview Britons stood "united, resolute and strong."President Bush was briefed on the situation, but officials said there was no information on an increased threat to the United States and no plan to raise threat levels, although security was tightened at major airports. In Washington, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told CNN's "Late Edition" that it was too early to tell who is behind the attack, but it is "a reasonable possibility" that it may be an al Qaeda-linked group.The weekend's incidents come days before the second anniversary of July 7, 2005, when four Islamic extremist suicide bombers killed 52 people on London's transport system in the deadliest strike on the city since World War II.