Knife attack terror suspect was on British spy radar Police: Charlotte block party 1 WOUNDED IN 1 MORE SHOOTING shooting leaves 2 dead, 7 hurt IN SEATTLE

London, June 22: A Libyan asylum seeker currently in custody in relation to the knife rampage in a British park that killed three people was known to the MI5 intelligence service, UK media reports said on Monday.

Khairi Saadallah, 25, has been arrested under the UK’s Terrorism Act after the deadly incident in a busy park in the southern English city of Reading on Saturday evening was declared a terrorist attack by counter-terror officials.

It has now emerged that the refugee, who arrived in Britain from war-torn Libya in 2012, had been on the radar of security spies as they monitored him for suspected extremist activities. Security sources said that the suspect came to the attention of the security services in 2019 after they received information he had aspirations to travel abroad — potentially for terrorism. “When the information was further investigated, as the first stage of looking into a potential lead, no genuine threat or immediate risk was identified. No case file was opened which would have made him a target for further investigation,” the sources were quoted as saying.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who held discussions with security officials following the attack, said that “if there are lessons that we need to learn about how we handle such cases, then we will learn those lessons”.

Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has said that “people are united in their grief ” following the attack, and that he wants to speak to the prime minister to discuss how to “learn from this”.

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel is expected to update MPs in relation to the terror attack in the House of Commons later on Monday. Two of the three victims of the terror attack have been identified as 36year-old school teacher James Furlong and 39-yearold Joe Ritchie-Bennett, an American citizen living in the UK.

“I offer my deepest condolences to the families of those killed. To our great sorrow, this includes an American citizen. Our thoughts are with all those affected,” US ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson said in a statement.

Washington, June 22: Two people were killed and seven wounded in a shooting at a block party in the eastern US city of Charlotte, local media reported Monday. Five others were hurt when they were hit by vehicles during the gathering, which CBS affiliate station WBTV reported was part of extended celebrations over the Juneteenth holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.

Police said they had responded initially to reports of a pedestrian hit by a car, but arrived to find hundreds of people scattered on the streets when shots were heard, according to WBTV. The station cited police as saying there is evidence multiple shooters were involved. The motive behind the incident — which happened around midnight — was unclear, and WBTV cited witnesses as saying the Juneteenth gatherings in the area all weekend had been a “happy, peaceful celebration”.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said their detectives were investigating a homicide in Beatties Ford Road — the same street identified by WBTV. “One person has been pronounced deceased at the scene. Several other victims have been transported by Medic with gunshot wounds,” the department said on Twitter.

Seattle, June 22: At least one person was wounded, police said, in what was the second shooting in Seattle’s protest zone in less than 48 hours. The shooting happened late Sunday night in the area near Seattle’s downtown that is known as CHOP, for “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest”, police tweeted, adding that one person was at a hospital with a gunshot wound.

The person arrived in a private vehicle and was in serious condition, Harborview Medical Center spokesperson Susan Gregg said in a statement. The zone evolved after weeks of protests in the city over police brutality and racism, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis. The Sunday shooting followed a pre-dawn shooting on Saturday in a park within the zone that left a 19-year-old man dead and a 33-year-old man critically injured.