Australia detains man in terror probe

(CNN) -- A doctor taken into custody Monday while trying to fly out of Australia was the eighth person detained as British investigators focused on several foreign-born doctors believed to have played a role in the attempted terror attacks in London and Glasgow over the weekend, Australian officials and sources said.

A second doctor in Australia was being questioned, but had not been detained, according to Queensland Premier Peter Beattie.

A 27-year-old man -- identified by Scotland Yard only as "H" -- was detained at the Brisbane, Australia, airport Monday evening while waiting to catch a flight out of the country, Beattie said.

Australian police were executing search warrants at locations in the Brisbane area, including at the Gold Coast Hospital in Southport, Queensland, where the man worked as a doctor, according to Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock.

At a Tuesday news conference, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the man was an Indian national, who was working in the country under a temporary visa.

"He was sponsored by the Queensland Health Department," Howard said. "He was working as a registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital."

Beattie said the both doctors were recruited from Liverpool last year, through an ad in the British Medical Journal, to work in Australia.

The doctor who was in custody was considered a good employee in the emergency department and was "regarded as a model citizen, excellent references," Beattie said.

Earlier, authorities identified Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla, 27, as one of two men who rammed an explosives-laden SUV into a terminal at the airport in Glasgow, Scotland, Saturday, a British source said.

British authorities said they believe those two men are the same ones who parked two car bombs in Central London on Friday. The cars, packed with fuel and nails, could have killed hundreds if they had been set off.

In addition to Abdulla, police also arrested Dr. Mohammed Asha, a Jordanian-educated physician who moved to England two years ago, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. Watch what investigators have learned about the suspects »

Asha, 26, was picked up late Saturday on a motorway in the Cheshire area of northern England, a source said. Police say he was arrested with a 27-year-old woman, identified by Asha's family as his wife.

Asha's house in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, has been searched since his arrest Saturday night. Neighbors there said that another doctor is also part of the investigation.

Police have sealed the home of the unnamed doctor and his wife, which is about two miles from Asha's home in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Forensic teams are searching the house, where the doctor and his wife have lived for about a year, neighbors said. Police would not confirm any details about their search. Police search for evidence in the terror scares »

It is unclear if the doctor and his wife are in police custody.

Asha's family in Amman, Jordan, is distraught and has not heard anything from the British Embassy or from London, his older brother, Ahmed Asha, said.

Asha was not a religious person and was in the top of his medical class, focusing on neurosurgery, his brother said.

The family is especially worried about Asha's 2-year-old son, who was born in Britain shortly after the couple moved there. The family does not know who is taking care of the boy since both parents have been arrested, the brother said.

On Monday, a bomb disposal unit performed at least two controlled explosions on a suspicious device at a hospital where one of the suspects in Saturday's Glasgow attack is being treated for severe burns.

A CNN crew at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Glasgow heard two blasts, which occurred about an hour after a bomb disposal truck was spotted outside the medical facility.

Sources said one of the two suspects behind the Glasgow attack worked as a doctor at Royal Alexandra, although it is not clear which one.

On Sunday, police conducted a controlled explosion of a vehicle in the hospital's parking lot. Police said there was no indication the vehicle contained 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.

The government said on Monday that police had searched at least 19 locations for evidence. Seven suspects had been detained in Britain, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told the House of Commons.

Police were tracking the two men suspected in the Glasgow attack even before it occurred, sources said.

It is believed that the two suspects shared a rental house in the 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.

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.

The attack at Scotland's busiest airport came 36 hours after the two car bombs were found in London.

British police and security sources said they believed the two London car bombs were to be remotely triggered, possibly by mobile phones, but failed to detonate.

The weekend's incidents came 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. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Cal Perry, Matthew Chance, Paula Newton, Alphonso Van Marsh, Andrew Carey and Nic Robertson contributed to this report.

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