The poor weather being least of our concerns, Britain is once again in a state of high security following the failed car bombings in the West End and the attack on Glasgow Airport.

Eight people have been arrested in the UK and Australia over the bomb plots so far. Seven are believed to have links with the NHS – as either doctors or medical students and two being arrested by police at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

Three of the suspects are thought to be from India including Kafeel Ahmed, who doused himself in petrol and set light to himself in last Saturday's Glasgow airport attack. He is believed to have been the driver of the Jeep Cherokee which burst into flames after it rammed the front of the airport terminal building. He is thought to be the older brother of Dr Sabeel Ahmed, who was arrested by police in Liverpool. Mohammed Haneef, 27, also an Indian doctor who was detained on Monday at the international airport in Brisbane, Australia, is their cousin.

In a telephone conversation with Gordon Brown, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raised the fear that all Indians working in the NHS may be labeled as terrorists. However this incident illustrated yet again the lack of any discernible pattern or of racial profiles when it comes to the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism.

The 7/7 suicide bombings were carried out by British-born Muslims with Pakistani links while others have come from the Caribbean or are white converts. Last year Dhiren Barot, a Hindu convert to Islam was sentenced to 40 years for leading a cell into which he recruited six British Muslims. There is no ethnic homogeneity in these acts of terrorism as Islam is a religion, not a race.

While it is obvious that such terrorist attacks are the results of a certain ideological leanings and not of racial inheritances in any way, yet incidents such as those of last week are likely to cause racial friction and suspicion as seen after the 7/7 bombings. An obvious example of this can be gleaned in the case where amongst the chaos of the tube derailment accident on July 5, a “dark-skinned” man was rugby-tackled by confused passengers thinking he was a suicide bomber.