Kafeel Ahmed, who suffered 90 per cent burns after driving a blazing Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow airport on 30 June, and also linked to the two unexploded car bombs in central London the previous day, was in frequent contact with Malta in the months leading up to the series of foiled terrorist attacks according to Indian police.

Indian investigators probing the activities of two Indian brothers, Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed, allegedly at the centre of the recent terrorism plots, say they have found a SIM card used by Kafeel Ahmed when he was last in India between December 2005 and May 2007.

Using mobile phone forensic techniques, Indian police say they have analysed a SIM card and mobile phone line used by Kafeel Ahmed that was registered in his father’s name.

The analyses, according to Bangalore police investigators, have revealed what they describe as “frequent communications” with Malta, the UK, Finland, Saudi Arabia and Oman.

Kafeel Ahmed had apparently given the phone number to a police source in February 2006 as a contact number for a Bangalore meeting showing solidarity with Chechnyan Muslims on World Chechnya Day.

While Bangalore police are questioning local residents from the list of calls made by Kafeel Ahmed, it is not yet known if similar investigations are underway in the other countries, including Malta, to which calls were placed from the phone number.

The multinational connections involved in the three-fold car bomb plot hatched at the end of June – in which arrests have been made in the UK and Australia involving nationalities such as Indians, Iraqis and Saudi Arabians – sheds another ray of light on the shady world of international terrorism rings, which operate in a seemingly borderless world.

And the fact that Malta’s name crops up in connection to such rings from time to time should come as no surprise, being as it is a half-way point between Africa and Europe and still considered a relatively quiet corner of the world.

Foreign security officials have in fact indicated, off the record, that many individuals investigated in countries such as Italy over terrorism links had passed through Malta before arriving on the European mainland.

In the meantime, Bangalore police have turned their attention to a confiscated computer thought to have been used by the brothers with the hope of recovering deleted emails and other internet communications undertaken and linked to the UK terrorism plots.

Both Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed, aged 26 and 27 respectively, had once applied to work as doctors in Australia, but the applications had been turned down as concerns were expressed about the references provided.

Sabeel Ahmed was arrested in Liverpool hours after his brother Kafeel carried out the high profile alleged attack on Glasgow airport. When the plan failed, Kafeel doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire.

Kafeel Ahmed, currently hospitalised under police guard in Glasgow, has not yet been formally arrested and questioning of the suspect is unlikely to take place given the severe nature of his burns. It is thought he is not likely to survive.

British police say they had already been searching for Kafeel and attempted airport bomber Dr Bilal Abdullah, a British-born Iraqi doctor, in connection to the previous day’s find of two explosives and nail packed Mercedes’ in central London.

Police had been led to the pair after checking phone numbers stored on mobile phones left inside the vehicles intended to be used to trigger the explosives.

Just 10 minutes before the Glasgow attack, police had been speaking with the pair’s landlord and a taxi service they were known to have used.

Dr Abdullah is, so far, the only person charged among eight suspects, including Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed and two Saudi Arabian doctors working in London’s Alexandria Hospital, detained over the failed attacks.

During his time in India, Kafeel Ahmed worked in the Bangalore office of Infotech Enterprises, again with apparently dubious credentials, between December 2005 and July 2006. He was employed as an aeronautical engineer at the firm, which designs aircraft parts for companies like Boeing and Airbus and also handles outsourcing work for the British Home Office.