"He was certainly very angry about what was happening in Iraq. ... He supported the insurgency in Iraq. He actively cheered the deaths of British and American troops in Iraq," Maher told British Broadcasting Corp.

At the time of his arrest, 26-year-old Asha worked at North Staffordshire Hospital, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, but a doctor at Royal Alexandra Hospital in Glasgow said Asha also kept an office there.

Asha was arrested on the M6 highway Saturday night along with his wife, Marwa Asha, 27, with their 1 1/2-year-old son in the car. The boy is now in the care of British social services.

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.

"All I can say about his personality over this time is that he was an ambitious medical student looking for success in his career," said Aseel al-Omari, who described herself as Mohammed Asha's "close friend."

"He was a good Muslim but never a terrorist or involved in such activities," she added.

The families of the two Indian doctors detained in connection with failed terror plots Muhammad Haneef, 27, and Sabeel Ahmed, 26, insisted the same.

"Both these boys are just caught in between," Ahmed's mother, Zakia Ahmed, herself a doctor, told reporters Wednesday in Bangalore, India. She said the two men are distant relatives and went to medical school together.

Both also had worked for the Halton Hospital in northern England, but Haneef was a junior doctor in Australia since September. He was detained by Australian authorities Monday night as he tried to board a flight out of the country.

No obvious link has yet emerged between the two Indians and the six other suspects.

"We're building up the biographical data and the links between each of them and others. It's also a case of working out their recent movements and seeing where they cross paths," the British security official said.

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