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As the search for the hunt for suspects spread across the world to Australia, reports said seven of those held are doctors or medical students, and one female suspect had worked as a laboratory technician.

 All had at one point been employed by Britain's National Health Service, the NHS, fuelling speculation that they could have been recruited to set up al-Qaeda "sleeper cells" in British hospitals.

 While police have not commented on the arrests, or the identities and nationalities of the suspects, reports have said the seven men and one woman were from the Middle East and India.

 Police sources said the "arrest phase" following the abortive attacks was now over.

 The British Medical Association (BMA) said Tuesday it was "shocked" at the news that doctors were alleged to have been involved in the attempted bombings.

 "The news that members of a caring profession may be involved in these atrocities is even more appalling," said BMA chairman Hamish Meldrum, adding that overseas doctors made an "invaluable contribution" to Britain's health service.

 Police said two men were arrested in Blackburn, northern Britain, Tuesday, but it was too soon to say whether the arrests were linked to the plot.

 Meanwhile, long-haul flights from one of the terminals at London's Heathrow airport were suspended Tuesday after a terror alert.

 Hundreds of passengers were evacuated from Heathrow's Terminal 4 as officers searched a suspect bag and passengers were asked to undergo secondary checks.

 British Airways (BA) said more than 100 flights were cancelled from the terminal - the only one affected by the disruption. It was later reopened.

 As Britain remained on the highest level of terror alert, explosives experts performed a controlled explosion on three fire extinguishers left on a pavement outside Hammersmith Tube station in London.

 A controlled explosion was also carried out on a car parked near a mosque in Glasgow, the Scottish city which has become the focus of the investigations after two men rammed a flaming Jeep into its main airport building Saturday.

 Investigations focused Tuesday on the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, near Glasgow, where one of the men in the Jeep, Iraqi Balil Abdulla, worked as a doctor.

 His accomplice, who drove the vehicle, and who is being treated in the hospital for severe burns suffered in the attack, was Tuesday named as Khalid Ahmed, also a doctor there.

 Police said suspect devices found in doctors' accommodation of the hospital had been made safe by controlled explosion.

 The two men are also suspected of having parked the two Mercedes car bombs in London, stacked with petrol, gas canisters and nails, early last Friday.

 Following a tip-off from British detectives, police in Australia early Tuesday arrested an Indian doctor at Brisbane airport, as he prepared to leave the country for India on a one-way-ticket.

 Mohamed Haneef, who had previously worked in Britain, had for the last 10 months been employed as a registrar at the Gold Coast Hospital in Queensland.

 The 27-year-old man, said to be from Bangalore in India, was tracked down from mobile phone records left behind in the botched London attacks.

 He is expected to be extradited to Britain.

 Australian Prime Minister John Howard said a second person was "currently assisting the police with their inquiries."

   Apart from Haneef, and the would-be terrorist in hospital in Paisley, all suspects have been transferred to the top-security Paddington Green police station in London.

 They include Mohammed Asha, a 26-year-old neurologist from Jordan, who worked at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, in Stoke-on-Trent, central Britain.

 Asha's wife, Marwah Dana Asha, a 27-year-old laboratory technician, was arrested with him during a dramatic police operation on a main motorway in Britain last Saturday.

 Asha's family in Jordan have denied that the young doctor would have anything to do with terrorists, and appealed to King Abdullah to assist in his release.

 A 26-year-old doctor from Bangalore, India, was arrested in Liverpool last Saturday, and two Saudi junior doctors, aged 25 and 28, were arrested at Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley.

 While British police and security services have been alarmed by the possibility that the perpetrators could belong to a foreign terrorist cell using British hospitals as a cover, Britain's Muslim community has expressed relief that so-called home-grown British terrorism appears to be ruled out of the investigations.

 Britain's leading Muslim organisation Tuesday condemned the "barbarity" of the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow and urged the community to help "prevent terrorism."

   Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), said it was the "Islamic duty" not only to condemn such actions, but also to provide all the support necessary to prevent such atrocities from taking place.

 "The events of the past few days have been very disturbing and challenging for all of us," he told a news conference at the MCB offices in east London.

 The MBC, while the largest umbrella organisation of Britain's 1.7 million Muslims, is considered overwhelmingly moderate.

 "It looks sadly as if the terror threat currently facing our country will be with us for some time to come. So let us be absolutely clear about this - that those who seek to deliberately kill or maim innocent people are the enemies of all of us," said Abdul Bari.//DPA