David Leask: Bilal Abdulla's bid to murder holidaymakers was ultimately foiled, but the attack raised fears Scotland was vulnerable to terror attacks. Now the country has a police unit equal to the task

Published on Saturday 20 December 2008 18:38

THE guy at the front desk has never heard of them. This is the most secure police station in Scotland and, as of this month, home to the nation's newest and, arguably, single most important team of detectives. But nobody has told the door staff.

The Major Crime and Terrorism Investigation Unit, to be fair, isn't exactly advertising itself. Over recent weeks its 203 workers have quietly moved into the endless corridors and back stairways of Glasgow's sprawling Helen Street police office. Some are covert, some not. All have been brought together for a single reason: because of what happened at Glasgow Airport on 30 June 2007.

"Terrorism hadn't really hit our shores until the airport," explained the new unit's John Cuddihy yesterday." Seeing that Jeep driven to the doors that day brought it home to everybody: this is real and it is affecting our people, our community."

Cuddihy, a detective chief inspector, was one of the senior investigating officers for the attack. He and his many colleagues eventually got their man last week.

Bilal Abdulla, a 29-year-old Iraqi doctor who had been working for the NHS, was jailed for 32 years at a London court for trying to blow up one of Britain's busiest airports on its busiest day of the year.

Scottish police coped with the Glasgow Airport attack. But in many ways the attempted bombing was a wake-up call for law enforcement. The crime – and the tactics used to solve it – were to provoke a huge overhaul of Scottish policing, not least the creation of the Major Crime and Terrorism Investigation Unit.

But what exactly are these changes? Why were they needed? And have they really made Scotland more resistant to attack?

They have never had any visitors from the press at the unit before. There has never even been a public acknowledgement of their existence. But two of the unit's DCIs, Cuddihy and Elaine Morrison, are eager to spell out exactly why the group has been brought together. Both are former operatives at the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. Cuddihy specialises in organised crime and terror, Morrison in the increasingly sophisticated financial and economic crime that can fund everything from Glasgow gangland figures to Islamic extremism.

"We are all joined up," said Morrison. "Not that we were completely cut off from each other before. But the system has been tweaked and made slicker and more efficient. We are all together."

Starting this month, the new unit effectively gives Scotland a one-stop shop for carrying out major investigations and manhunts, of both terrorists and gangsters. The unit belongs to Strathclyde Police, but it is already been seen as a national asset, at the disposal of any part of the country that needs it. "Basically it is a hybrid of the Sweeney and SO15," said one police source, referring to the Metropolitan Police's one-time serious crime squad and its current Counter Terrorism Command. The combination of the two elements – counter terror and the battle with major and organised crime – is no coincidence. It is the basis of the whole project.

"Crooks are crooks," added the source. "We are good at investigating them. Unfortunately, because of where we are, Strathclyde has plenty of organised crime to deal with. Terrorists are criminals too but they don't come along so often. So, instead of having an anti-terror group that just sits around twiddling its thumbs, we will keep our investigators' skills up by going after serious and organised criminals."

Helen Street and the new unit – known by its appropriately Scottish sounding initials MCTIU – has experts in tracing mobile phones, tracking the internet use of suspects, examining complicated crime scenes and carrying out covert surveillance. Crucially, the unit has its own, customised CCTV system, capable of taking images from any of the range of closed circuit cameras dotted up and down the UK. All the experts, maintained Cuddihy, have one thing in common: "They are seasoned investigators," he said. "Before you learn any of these skills, you have to be a good and experienced detective."

At Helen Street, senior officers meet in the event of a big investigation or terror attack. "Hot intelligence" is shared and updates from CCTV – or even 24-hour news TV shows – are displayed on a bank of video screens. The skills officers use will be the same whether they are tracing a known gangster or a suspected terrorist.

The Glasgow Airport investigation was a success, with the suspect quickly apprehended. But officers privately admit that without the kind of joined-up unit they now have there was always the danger of key intelligence or ideas slipping through the cracks between separate units.

Detective Chief Superintendent Ruaraidh Nicolson, the head of Strathclyde CID, said: "There was always a notion that we would pull all these services together. But Glasgow Airport accelerated all of that. As we learned lessons from Glasgow Airport, we realised we have got to make sure we have got people that are match fit for whatever we are confronted by."

Police north of the border are working to exactly the same anti-terror strategy as their colleagues in England and Wales. It is called Contest and is split into four simple component parts: Pursue, Prevent, Prepare and Protect. MCTIU is largely about the "Pursue" element. But MCTIU is not alone. The body and other police units are supported by the Scottish HQ of MI5.

Its creation was planned before the airport attack but most of its recruitment, as Scotland on Sunday revealed earlier this year, has taken place since. Scottish police also have their own nationwide Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Unit, led by Allan Burnett, an assistant chief constable from Fife. Both MI5 and Burnett's unit are more concerned with the "Prevent" part of Contest. And that, above all, means doing everything they can to thwart the radicalisation of young Scottish Muslims.

Some young Scots Asians, however, have become increasingly frustrated at the attention they get from the police, especially at airports. Officers from Strathclyde Special Branch have been accused of harassing Muslims, especially from Afghanistan and Pakistan. So why are so many young Asian men stopped at airports, especially Glasgow? "It's intelligence-led policing," said Burnett. "It's not racial profiling. But it can be perceived that way." At least one travel agent in Glasgow, Scotland on Sunday understands, is advising against travel to Pakistan on direct flights from Glasgow.

Garry Hindle, a terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London who has studied Scotland's resilience, is worried about how Muslims perceive such counter-terror measures. "We have got to watch that there isn't an overreaction to terror," he said. "Because there is always the danger that the police alienate the very people who could have vital information."

Scottish police, however, are building on community relations that are already healthy, proved by the way they handled the immediate aftermath of the June 2007 attacks. Muslims described the officers as "sensitive" in the way they dealt with a car left by the would-be bombers at one of Glasgow's most important mosques.

Burnett, however, admits he has been getting a rough time at public meetings with the Muslim community. He has introduced plans for role-playing by officers to make sure they understand what it is liked to be stopped at an airport. But the officer is heartened by the fact Asians are taking their grievances to the police. "It would be worse if they were quiet and we were complacent," said Nicolson.

Ateeq Ansari, a 31-year-old Glaswegian of Pakistan descent, was detained at Prestwick Airport in September after getting off a Ryanair flight from London. Special Branch officers asked him scores of questions about his family and his views he didn't see the point of. Ansari, however, decided West of Scotland humour was the best way to deal with what he saw as a pointless and offensive waste of his time. "They asked me what I thought of Jihad," he said, referring to the Islamic notion of a Holy War. "I said I had never heard of the bloke."

Many Scots Muslims are facing up to the fact that they are being expected to bear the brunt of the social cost of investigating and preventing terrorism. But they still expect – and demand – that police question them with a bit more savvy and cultural awareness.

Back at Helen Street, the MCTIU staffers are eager for any "intel" they can get their hands on, from either Burnett's officers or from their own specialists. "They are like our eyes and ears. In the middle, we have the brain," said Cuddihy, with a self-deprecatory chuckle. It's the brain, say insiders, that is making Scotland safer.