Two of the suspects in the London car bomb attacks were trying to get into the United States.

LONDON - The FBI confirmed Friday that two suspects in the failed car bombings in Britain had contacted a clearinghouse for foreign doctors about working in the United States, 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.