Why us, Scotland asks about attack

Compared with suspects in past terrorist attacks, the eight held in connection with the bungled bombings here and in London gravitated to the most unlikely places in Britain

Compared with suspects in past terrorist attacks, the eight held in connection with the bungled bombings here and in London gravitated to the most unlikely places in Britain, from quaint communities in the English Midlands and the suburbs of Glasgow to the university town of Cambridge.

Following the fiery Jeep attack on Glasgow8217;s airport, much of Scotland has been thrust into stunned self-reflection, having felt that Glasgow was a city that terrorists would not bother to attack while concentrating their attention on prominent international centres like London and New York.

Evoking a sharpening sense of separateness dating back centuries, the columnist Iain Macwhirter described Scotland8217;s identity crisis in The Herald newspaper two days after the attack: 8220;Scotland has been left with a sense of 8216;why us?8217; We8217;re different, aren8217;t we? We8217;re not really a part of the Anglo-American military axis. A small nation, subordinated to a larger partner in the UK, too marginal to bomb.8221;

Macwhirter further wrote: 8220;Terrorists tend to target the centres of government and the media because that8217;s where they get the maximum bang for their buck. It8217;s where government ministers take the decisions on war and peace and where the centres of finance are located.8221;

In Scotland, that would be Edinburgh, not Glasgow, where just last month the Scottish National Party took power, deepening the notion that Scotland8217;s destiny has diverged from England8217;s. No matter that the two were in fact further intertwined with the ascent last month of Gordon Brown, a Scot, as Prime Minister.

Outside of Glasgow, in the village of Houston, where the two men in the Jeep Cherokee8212;Bilal Abdulla and Kafeel Ahmed8212;are believed to have lived in a house on a placid cul-de-sac, residents were grappling with the fact that terrorism may have reached their doorstep.

They pointed out that Houston is a comfortable, idyllic bedroom community, made up of a large number of teachers, doctors, and other professionals, where horseback riders trot through the old town centre and parents go fishing with their children.

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8220;We have lost our innocence,8221; said Rose Morrison 48, a waitress at the Fox and Hounds pub in Houston for 22 years. 8220;Even this lovely village is vulnerable. It is indeed a new day for us.8221;