By Prasun Sonwalkar, IANS
London : Kafeel Ahmed, the Indian national who is seriously ill after suffering 90 percent burns when he rammed a blazing jeep into the Glasgow airport last week, was based in Cambridge, where he studied for a PhD at the Anglia Ruskin University.
He previously worked as a researcher in the Queens University, Belfast. Kafeel was often visited while in Cambridge by his younger brother, Sabeel Ahmed, the Indian doctor who was arrested in Liverpool last week.
Latest reports here say that he used a house in Houston, near Glasgow, to make the car bombs, packing the vehicles with gas cylinders and petrol. The mobile phone detonators in the two Mercedes cars parked in London's West End failed and Kafeel then chose to drive a third vehicle into Glasgow airport himself.
There were unconfirmed reports that the malfunction in the car bombs – one of which was parked outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in London – was due to a "medical syringe".
The ABC television network in America claimed that a syringe had been used as part of the firing mechanism of the car bomb but had not worked, despite repeated calls from the alleged bombers.
Now it is believed that Cambridge was at the heart of the terror plot involving the eight arrested people, including the two Ahmed brothers (Kafeel and Sabeel) and Mohammd Haneef, who was arrested in Brisbane, Australia.
Bilal Abdulla, 27, who was in the jeep car bomb in Glasgow with Kafeel, and another suspect, Mohammed Asha, 26, studied together at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge. It was in Cambridge that the two Ahmed brothers met Abdulla and Asha.
According to The Telegraph, Kafeel also spent time in Cambridge recently. His CV in 2005 gave his address as an Islamic Academy in Gilbert Road, Cambridge, and said that his expertise was "computational fluid dynamics", in which computers are used to work out the interaction of fluids and gases with surfaces used in engineering.
Meanwhile, Anthony Russell, the Bishop of Ely, said: "Many people will be shocked by the news that several of those arrested in connection with the attempted car bombings had lived in Cambridge and one of these had worked at Addenbrooke's Hospital.
"It is important to remember such acts of terrorism are condemned by both Christian and Muslim communities alike. Both communities continue to work together and I share the concern that these events could have an adverse effect on patient relationships.
"I call on everyone to recognise the considerable debt we owe all nurses, doctors and surgeons who work in the health service and care for those who are sick or injured."
Asim Mumtaz, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in Cambridge, said: "It is a tragedy because these actions do not reflect the actions of the founder of Islam, the holy prophet, or the tenets of Islam in any sense.
"I do not know how anyone can interpret the religion to justify such actions, and would reassure the community that the perpetrators are a tiny minority who do not represent the wider Muslim community."
Richard Howitt, a member of the European Parliament, who lives in Mawson Road just yards from the mosque where at least one of the terror suspects used to worship, also warned against any backlash.
He said: "It is essential that all communities in Cambridge respect Islam as a religion of peace and that extremists involved in terrorist attacks do not represent the vast majority of moderate Muslims living in Britain.
"I'm glad senior members of the mosque have condemned these acts so robustly and quickly. I'm sure they are just as horrified as I am about the apparent link between a terrorist suspect and our local mosque.
"No one can have expected a potential link to a city like Cambridge. It only underlines the fight against terrorism must be not be confined on the basis of prejudice to areas with high numbers of ethnic minorities."