Police, media scour for clues about London attacker
Bid to piece together the puzzle which ended in carnage
BIRMINGHAM: Authorities and media have been scouring for clues about the London attacker who ploughed an SUV into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and then stabbed a police officer at parliament on Wednesday.
The manager of a hotel where the attacker stayed the night before the attack said he seemed unusually outgoing and mentioned details about his family, including having a sick father.
“He was normal, in fact friendly, because we spent possibly five or 10 minutes talking to him about his background and where he came from,” Sabeur Toumi said.
Police raided the room at the Preston Park Hotel in Brighton after the attack, searching for clues about Khalid Masood, who was identified yesterday by his prior name Adrian Russell Ajao.
Toumi said Masood checked in under his own name and mentioned having a couple of children, as well as troubles with an ailing father. Among the items seized were a trouser press and toilet paper.
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 the 52 year old was not under investigation when he sped across Westminster Bridge on Wednesday before being shot dead by police.
Although some of those he was involved with included people suspected of being keen to travel to join jihadi groups overseas, Masood “himself never did so”, said a US government source.
“Our investigation focuses on understanding his motivation, his operation and his associates,” Britain’s senior counterterrorism police officer, Mark Rowley, said.
“While there is still no evidence of further threats, our determination is to find out if either he acted totally alone, inspired perhaps by terrorist propaganda, or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him.”
Islamic State claimed responsibility for Masood’s attack, although it was unclear what links, if any, he had with the group.
Born Adrian Russell Ajao in Kent, south-east of London, on Christmas Day in 1964, he moved though several addresses in England, and lived recently in Birmingham in central England.
The Daily Mail newspaper said he was brought up by his single mother in the 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 body building.
Known by a number of aliases, he racked up a string of convictions, but none for terrorism-related offences.
Little detail has officially been given about the man and what might have led him to carry out the attack.
“Our working assumption is that he was inspired by international terrorism,” said Rowley.
Rowley said detectives were questioning nine people in custody. – Reuters and AP