By THOMAS WAGNER and MARYCLAIRE DALE,
Associated Press Writers

LONDON - Two suspects in the failed car bombings in Britain had contacted a clearinghouse for foreign doctors about working in the United States, the FBI said Friday, and British officials probed links between the attacks and al-Qaida in Iraq.

An FBI spokeswoman said Mohammed Asha and another suspect had contacted the Philadelphia-based Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, as first reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Asha, a Jordanian physician of Palestinian heritage, contacted the agency within the last year, but apparently did not take the test for foreign medical school graduates, said the spokeswoman, Nancy O’Dowd.

“He was applying, (but) we don’t believe he took the test,” she said.

O’Dowd could not immediately confirm the name of the second suspect.

The FBI visited the organization’s office in West Philadelphia this week, O’Dowd said.

On June 29, authorities defused two car bombs that had been set to explode near packed nightclubs and pubs in central London. The following day, two people rammed a car loaded with gas canisters into the airport terminal in Glasgow, Scotland. The car ignited, seriously injuring one of the suspects. Both men in the car have been arrested.

“From what I know, we are getting to the bottom of this cell that has been responsible for what is happening,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television.

Asha was arrested on the M6 highway Saturday night along with his wife. In Jordan, security officials said Asha had no criminal record, and friends and family said they found it hard to believe either he or his wife were connected with terrorism.

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