A relative commented earlier today that there were traffic jams …turns out this was related to vehicles being diverted due to an apparent terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport where men in a car tried to ram through the customer entrance of the terminal, the car was on fire at the time.
Raw footage from Glasgow Airport Terror Attack (contains audio) [liveleak.com]
Thank God: No one killed. This looks like a pretty clumsy attempt at terrorism or even the plot of a lousy Hollywood action film, even so it could have been much, much worse. Thankfully there’s no loss of life a pundit reckons if the propane devices had exploded inside the terminal there could have been deaths into the hundreds. This should have been one of the busiest weekends of the year at Glasgow Airport as local schools have just finished for their holidays so many family holidays would be commencing. With the recent activity around the investigations into the Lockerbie bombings it brings terrorism to Scotland once again. Talk about a baptism of fire for new leaders Alex Salmond and Gordon Brown.
Thanks to:
- The bravery of Strathclyde Police who were on the scene immediately and apprehended the suspects. Following a press conference they released a Strathclyde Police statement with details of a phone number for witnesses.
- The Scottish “have-a-go” heros like Stephen Clarkson who along with others helped knock one of the men to the ground when he was resisting arrest. watched United 93 for the first time a few days ago, very good,moving and thought-provoking, what would you do in a terror situation? I’m proud that folk intervened.
- The courage of the Strathclyde Fire and Rescue again on the scene promptly and tackling an unknown situation where further incendiary devices/explosives might be present.
- Medical staff at Royal Alexandra Hospital treating a suspect for serious burns – it was feared that he had a suicide belt in his possession when he arrived! (Update: suspect device later found to not be explosive)
- Mohammad Sarwar who is already making moves to quell racial tensions in relation to this incident. Race relations in Glasgow have been uneasy in recent years, the last thing we need is any reprisals by numpties.
One of the stranger aspects has been the relative lack of news coverage on the main UK TV channels BBC1 and ITV1 other than normal bulletins. Both stayed with their normal evening programming with the exception of the sensible postponing of latenight screening of the “Die Hard 4″ premier. There was of course rolling non-stop coverage on BBC 24 but that’s not much use if you don’t know something has happened to warrant switching! I can’t help but thinking that in the days before 24hr news channels the BBC would have broken into normal shows and gone to the newsroom for a substantial time instead. I’m sure there’ll be a large number of British people who only watched their normal evening entertainment in blissful ignorance who will be shocked tomorrow morning picking up their Sunday papers.
