Second Terror Attack Brings Top U.K. Alert

Britain raised its terror alert to the highest possible level, and the Bush administration announced plans to increase security for U.S. airports and mass transit, after a sport-utility vehicle trailing a cascade of flames rammed the main terminal of Glasgow Airport yesterday.

The attack, which shattered glass doors just yards from passengers at the check-in counters, came a day after the discovery of two car bombs in London, and police said they suspected a connection.

While no terror threats were reported at U.S. airports, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark Liberty, John F. Kennedy and La Guardia airports, took "a number of measures, as we always do to respond to security situations immediately," spokesman Steve Coleman said.

Five bystanders at Glasgow Airport were wounded, none seriously, in what British security officials said was apparently a failed suicide mission by the occupants of the SUV, a green Jeep Cherokee.

One of the occupants was in critical condition at a hospital with severe burns, while another was in police custody, said Scottish Police Chief Constable Willie Rae. He said a "suspect device" was found on the man at the hospital and it was taken to a safe location to be investigated.

Rae would not say whether the device was a suicide belt.

"I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow Airport is linked to the events in London yesterday," Rae said. "There are clearly similarities, and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident."

On Friday, two parked Mercedes-Benz sedans in central London were found packed with explosives - one outside a nightclub near Piccadilly Circus and another nearby.

Early today, Scotland Yard announced the arrests of two men in the English county of Cheshire, roughly midway between London and Glasgow, in connection with Friday's and yesterday's incidents. A British government security official said the SUV, like the two sedans, was carrying a large quantity of flammable liquid. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Police and MI5, the British intelligence agency, had no specific information indicating a plan to attack Scotland, the homeland of new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, but they have monitored a host of suspected terrorists and plots there, the official said. It was not yet clear whether there was an international element to the planning or funding of the attacks, the official added.

Brown took office Wednesday, at a time of already heightened vigilance leading up to the anniversary of the July 7 London transit attacks, which killed 52 people.

``I know that the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong," Brown said in a televised statement yesterday.

The country raised its terror-threat alert to "critical," its highest level, for the first time since last August, when it exposed an alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners.

President Bush was being kept informed of the situation, the White House said. "We're in contact with British authorities on the matter," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, in Washington.

The green Cherokee sped along a service road and then swerved toward the doors of Glasgow Airport's main terminal shortly after 3 p.m. A witness, Scott Leeson, said bollards - small, strong posts implanted outside the entrance for security purposes - stopped the vehicle from driving into the bustling terminal, but the Jeep's nose smashed the glass doors.

``If he'd got through, he'd have killed hundreds, obviously," Leeson said.

Lynsey McBean, another witness, said the driver kept trying to push the car forward after it got stuck, and "the wheels were spinning and smoke was coming from them."

She said one of the men then took out a plastic gasoline canister and poured a liquid under the car.