Attack timeline: 82 seconds of horror
BRITAIN: Britain’s Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, is demanding more action from social -media companies to tackle online terror and help in fighting radicalisation
The Home Secretary says Google, Twitter and Facebook bosses have been summoned to a meeting to explain their lack of -action over extremism.
She also hints that new proposals to make internet giants take down hate videos quicker will be included in a counter-terrorism strategy due within weeks.
It comes after a terror attack saw Adrian Ajao, also known as Khalid Masood, kill four people and injure dozens more by mowing down tourists on Westminster Bridge and storming Parliament.
‘‘Each attack confirms again the role that the internet is playing in serving as a conduit, inciting and inspiring violence, and spreading extremist ideology of all kinds,’’ she writes.
‘‘But we can’t tackle it by ourselves ... We need [social media companies] to take a more proactive and leading role in tackling the terrorist abuse of their platforms.’’
Scotland Yard said last night that Ajao’s murderous onslaught lasted just 82 seconds.
The Metropolitan Police issued a timeline, showing the attack began at eight seconds past 2.40pm and that Ajao was shot at 30 seconds past 2.41pm.
With police investigations ongoing, The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered more details about what turned British-born Ajao into a killer.
The 52-year-old once tried to run a woman down in his local village by mounting the pavement in his car, this newspaper has been told.
It has also emerged that Ajao lived within a mile of members of a terrorist cell convicted of attempting to blow up a Territorial Army base in Luton when he lived there.
Last night Tobias Ellwood, the hero MP who tried to save the life of PC Keith Palmer minutes after the attack, revealed his ‘‘heartbreak’’ at the officer’s death.
‘‘I’m deeply humbled and overwhelmed by the messages of support, especially from the policing fraternity, which I now realise is as close knit as the military’s in supporting its own,’’ he said in a statement.
‘‘I played only a small part that day, doing what I was taught to do, and am honoured to have been invited to join the Privy Council afterwards.
‘‘It is right that we concentrate our thoughts on the victims as we stand side by side to protect all that we hold dear, including our precious values and way of life which will always prevail.’’
It has been announced the PC Palmer will be remembered permanently for his bravery at the National Memorial Arboretum.
The 48-year-old husband and father will be commemorated at the UK Police Memorial at the site in Staffordshire.
Eleven people have been arrested as police investigate the attack and a number of addresses raided across London, Birmingham and elsewhere.
All but one - a 58-year-old arrested in Birmingham - have been released from custody.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, who is the Senior National Co-ordinator for UK Counter Terrorism Policing, said yesterday that Ajao is believed to have ‘‘acted alone’’. He added: ‘‘We must all accept that there is a possibility we will never understand why he did this. That understanding may have died with him.’’
Rudd writes: ‘‘We need the help of social media companies: the Googles, the Twitters, the Facebooks, of this world.
Government sources said that while the issues of extremists’ posts on Facebook and Google were well known, smaller internet firms were also facing the same challenges. - Telegraph Group