The amateurish aspects of the failed British car bomb plot give the impression that the attackers had limited training, but that does not preclude links to dangerous networks, experts say. Al-Qaeda figures in Iraq or

Pakistan might not deploy a complete team with a concrete plan, officials said. Instead, their pattern has been

to prepare one or two operatives outside of the target country, and then give them autonomy to enlist accomplices and develop plots. A foreign doctor would be likely to recruit fellow foreign doctors.

US investigators are also looking into potential links to Iraq and elsewhere, especially after the revelation that two of the doctors jailed here had looked into working in the United States. But it’s premature to conclude that al-Qaeda in Iraq orchestrated the latest plot in Britain, said a US counter-terrorism official, and sometimes it takes years to unearth such details.