A Place to Stand

From Reuters

GLASGOW (Reuters) - A four-wheel-drive vehicle rammed into the main terminal at Glasgow airport on Saturday and exploded in flames, Glasgow police and witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

A Glasgow police spokeswoman said the vehicle had not penetrated the building and the blaze was under control.

Britain has been on alert after two cars packed with petrol, gas and nails were found in London's teeming theatre district on Friday. Anti-terror police said the car bombs could have killed or maimed scores of people.

A witness in Glasgow told Sky News that an Asian man who had been inside the vehicle scuffled with police immediately after the incident, was wrestled to the ground and detained.

Another witness said a second man, also Asian, was on fire following the blaze and badly burnt. The flames were extinguished and he was also detained by police, the witness said.

BBC radio says it happened at 3 pm. The eyewitnesses say the jeep cherokee was on giving off smoke & being driven towards the main building but burst into flames before getting there & that members of the public helped police catch 2 or possibly 4 Asian men.

This looks like similar tactics, though rather more desperate, to what was tried in London. Again they have not enough explosives, thankfully, to produce a devastating explosion though if they had been able to get the car inside the building & set off gas canisters the effect in an enclosed area would have been very like an explosion. It must have been an attempt at a suicide bombing since, in the middle of the day in a, relatively, isolated airport (it is about a mile from the town of Paisley) they cannot have had a hope of getting away.

I would like to hope that these men will turn out not to be from Scotland & part of the group who set off the London bombs. I have said before that I believe in the death penalty & even if no civilian has been killed I think it would be just here.

Strange as it may seem this is the first serious act of terrorism in Glasgow. All during the "troubles" in Ireland the IRA had the tactical good sense never to try anything here - the religious splits in Northern Ireland is mirrored in the west of Scotland though the Irish descended Catholics are as well entrenched inn government as the Kennedys.

It is clear that we do have a real problem going beyond a few nutters as I have reported before. is why I hope & think they will not turn out to be from Glasgow's Asian community). Compared to the IRA they are politically unsphisticated but compared to the IRA they are more murderous.

UPDATE - Kenny McAskill, Scottish cabinet Minister of Justice has just announced, as I had suspected & hoped, that the terrorists were not from Scotland.