Terror in Britain

New British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took over from Tony Blair on Wednesday, convened a meeting of Britain's top security committee to discuss how to deal with the first big test of his leadership.

In an interview with BBC television, Brown said the people still needed to be "constantly vigilant" against a "long-term and sustained threat."

"We are dealing with a long-term threat. It is not going to go away in the next few weeks or months," Brown said. He added it is "clear that we are dealing, in general terms, with people who are associated with al Qaeda."

Britain raises security level to "critical"

Brown was speaking after Britain raised its security level to "critical" -- the highest level which means a terrorist attack is imminent -- after a four-wheel-drive vehicle burst into flames after ramming into the main entrance of a terminal in Glasgow airport on Saturday.

Two men, one badly burned and in critical condition were arrested after the explosion which police described as a "terrorist incident." The men are of Asian descent.

The Glasgow attack came barely 36 hours after police in central London discovered and defused two car bombs which could have killed hundreds if they had detonated.

The authorities have launched a manhunt for those responsible. British police arrested a fifth person Sunday in connection with the attacks. The arrests included a 26-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman seized on a major highway in northern England on Saturday night and another man, 26, who was detained in Liverpool, in the northwest of England, on Sunday.

Later on Sunday, police said they had carried out a controlled detonation of a suspicious vehicle left in the car park of a hospital near Glasgow where one of the two airport assailants was being treated for severe burns. They said they believed the car was linked to the attack on the airport, but said it was not thought to contain explosives.

Police in London are looking through hundreds of hours of video footage after two foiled car bomb attacks. The area of London where the bombs were planted are some of the intensely monitored by CCTV surveillance.

The original car packed with petrol, gas and nails was placed in a car parked outside a nightclub in Haymarket, between Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus in the city’s theater district, an area normally crowded with droves of Londoners and tourists.

Police were alerted to it after an ambulance crew, which was called to the nightclub to treat a sick man, saw smoke coming from the green metallic Mercedes early Friday. Bomb experts then manually disabled the device.

A second car, also a Mercedes and equally crammed with gas and nails, was later found to have been parked close to the first before it was towed away by traffic police in the early hours of Friday for violating parking restrictions.

Police say the events in London and Glasgow are linked and experts believe the attacks to bear the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

"I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow airport is linked to the events in London yesterday," Willie Rae, the top police officer in the Glasgow area, told reporters.

"We will not be intimidated"

Brown told the BBC that terorism in all its forms was totally unacceptable.

"Irrespective of Iraq, irrespective of Afghanistan, irrespective of what is happening in different parts of the world, we have an international organisation trying to inflict the maximum damage on civilian life in pursuit of a terrorist cause that is totally unacceptable to most people," Brown said.

"It's obvious that we have a group of people - not just in this country, but round the world - who're prepared at any time to inflict what they want to be maximum damage on civilians, irrespective of the religion of these people who are killed or maimed are to be," he said.

"Terrorism can never be justified as an act of faith. It is an act of evil in all circumstances."

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the British public would not be "intimidated or let anyone stop us getting on with our lives."

The bomb scares come almost two years after a series of suicide attacks on London's public transport system killed 52 people. Members of an Islamist-inspired gang were jailed for life earlier this year after plotting to attack a number of high-profile British targets, including London's Ministry of Sound nightclub.

British Muslim groups condemned the series of incidents and urged Muslims to cooperate with the authorities.

"We are utterly appalled by this sinister plot and commend the professionalism of the security services in aborting it," the British Muslim Initiative said in a statement.

Britain has stepped up security at all its airports in the country and air traffic at Glasgow airport was gradually returning to normal. Police have also intensified patrols on the streets of London.