After attacks, foreign doctors face new scrutiny in Britain

Several arrested in connection with this week's failed car bombings were recruited from abroad by the National Health Service.

from the July 5, 2007 edition

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Britain's security services have estimated that some 2,000 individuals are involved in terrorist activities in Britain, but Mr. Gohel says that number will now have to be revised upward.

"The profiling of terrorists will have to be looked at again," he says. "It's strange to have a specific terror medic cell. Are we going to see a cell composed of lawyers, accountants?"

Some suggest the hospitals and the medical fraternity may have provided a convenient network in which to form a terror cell.

"The profession might facilitate the connections and communications" between individuals, says Katherine Baskerville, a security analyst with the London-based intelligence company Exclusive Analysis. "But the fact that these are doctors has shocked wider society because they are perceived as upstanding members of society."

She adds that the involvement of at least one Iraqi – Bilal Abdulla, who several media outlets claimed was born in England – was a concern.

"If you are dealing with a country like Iraq, they don't have a handle on their own situation, [on] who is an insurgent and who is a refugee," she says. "Thousands are coming to Europe, and there is no way of telling who is innocent and who is going to carry out attacks."

The health industry was aghast at the development. "The news that members of a caring profession may be involved in these atrocities was even more appalling," said Dr. Hamish Meldrum, the new chairman of the British Medical Association in a statement.

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