London attacker was a criminal with militant links Police make ‘significant’ arrests
BIRMINGHAM: Before he killed at least four people in Britain’s deadliest attack since the 2005 London bombings, Khalid Masood was considered by intelligence officers to be a criminal who posed little serious threat.
A British-born Muslim convert, Masood had shown up on the periphery of previous terrorism investigations that brought him to the attention of Britain’s MI5 spy agency.
But he was not under investigation when he sped across Westminster Bridge on Wednesday, plowing down pedestrians with a hired car before running into the parliamentary grounds and fatally stabbing an unarmed policeman. He was shot dead by police.
Although some of those he was involved with included people suspected of being keen to travel to join militant groups overseas, Masood “himself never did so,” said a US government source, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
“Masood was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack,” London police said in a statement.
“However, he was known to police and has a range of previous convictions for assaults, including GBH (grievous bodily harm), possession of offensive weapons and public order offenses.”
Daesh claimed responsibility for Masood’s attack, although it was unclear what links — if any — he had with the militant group.
The 52-year-old was born in Kent to the southeast of London and moved to several addresses in England, although he was known to have lived recently in Birmingham in central England.
Known by a number of other aliases, he racked up a string of convictions, but none for terrorism-related offenses. His occupation was unclear.
It was as long ago as November 1983 that he first came to the attention of authorities when he was found guilty of causing criminal damage, while his last conviction came 14 years ago in December 2003 for possession of a knife.
Little detail has officially been given about the man and what might have led him to carry out Wednesday’s attack, the deadliest in Britain since the London suicide bombings of 2005 by four young British militants, which killed 52.
“Our working assumption is that he was inspired by international terrorism,” said Britain’s most senior counterterrorism police officer, Mark Rowley.
One of his former neighbors in Birmingham said: “When I saw the pictures on TV and in the papers of the man who carried out the attack, I recognized him as the man who used to live next door.”
“He had a young child, who I’d think was about 5 or 6 years old. There was a woman living there with him, an Asian woman. He seemed to be quite nice, he would be taking care of his garden and the weeds,” Iwona Romek, 45, told reporters at her home. In December, she said, he suddenly moved out.
The Daily Mail newspaper said Masood had been born Adrian Elms and was brought up by his single mother in the seaside town of Rye on England’s south coast, later converting to Islam and changing his name.
Other media reports said he was a married father of three and a former English teacher who was into bodybuilding.
Meanwhile, two more people have been arrested over the terror attack, police said on Friday.
“We have made two further significant arrests overnight,” Rowley said, confirming that there are currently nine people in total in custody over the attack. One woman arrested earlier was released on bail.
Rowley said police carried out more than a dozen searches, seizing 2,700 items including “massive amounts of computer data” and were attempting to work out whether others had “encouraged, supported or directed him.”
Claiming responsibility for the attack, Daesh said the attacker was one of its “soldiers.”
“There might be people out there who did have concerns about Masood but did not feel comfortable for whatever reason in passing those concerns to us,” Rowley said, appealing for them to come forward.
The anti-terror police chief said “at least 50” people were injured when Masood plowed through pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before knifing a policeman to death just inside the gates of Britain’s parliament and being shot dead by another officer.
A total of 31 people of 12 nationalities have been treated in hospital and one person has “life-threatening injuries,” Rowley said.