London bleeds
– Britain’s parliament went into lockdown yesterday when a police officer was stabbed and the alleged assailant shot, reportedly after ploughing into about a dozen pedestrians on one of London’s busiest bridges.
According to media reports, the attacker mowed people down on the Westminster Bridge in a car before veering towards the parliament building and ramming the railings surrounding the grounds. He got out and attacked a police officer before he was shot. Reports said the attacker was carrying a large knife.
At least two people were killed, while many others suffered what was described as “catastrophic” injuries.
A Reuters photographer at the scene said he saw at least a dozen people injured on Westminster Bridge, next to parliament. His photographs showed people lying on the ground, some of them bleeding heavily and one apparently under a bus.
Hours after the incident, a woman who was rammed off the bridge was found alive in the freezing water of the Thames River.
Parliament was put on lockdown, with lawmakers and staff ordered to remain inside.
Downing Street said Prime Minister Theresa May was safe, and she was seen getting into a car and being driven away from parliament where she had been holding her weekly question-and-answer session earlier.
Television showed a red air ambulance landing on the grass square opposite the parliament building and other emergency vehicles swarming nearby roads.
Westminster Bridge and the Westminster Underground station, which serves parliament and the surrounding political district, were closed off.
No information about the attacker was made available, although various witnesses described him as a middle-aged man of Asian appearance.
US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House he had been briefed on events in London but gave no details.
The attack comes on the day Belgium marked the first anniversary of the IS bombings in which 32 people died and more than 320 were wounded.
Belgium observed a moment of silence yesterday to mark the first anniversary of the Islamic State bombings in Brussels, beginning a day of emotional ceremonies designed to show that the heart of Europe stands defiant.
A sombre King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, along with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and other ministers, lined up quietly at 7.58am outside the renovated Zaventem Airport to mark the exact time when two suicide bombers killed 16 people and wounded many more at the site.
During the airport ceremony, a woman clutched white roses as Eddy Van Calster, the brother of airport check-in agent Fabienne Van Steenkiste, who was killed in the attack, played a rock ballad in tribute.
As hundreds of people including victims’ family members and rescue workers looked on, an airport official read out all of the names of all of the victims. “March 22, 2016 will forever be in our hearts ... we stand here united,” the official said.
The royals led a second moment of silence at 9.11am at Maalbeek subway station to mark the moment a third suicide bomber killed another 16 people on a crowded train. More than 320 people were wounded in both attacks.
In an act of defiance and solidarity, the event at Maalbeek was followed by applause and a “minute of noise” as trains, trams and buses came to a halt in memory of the victims of the country’s worst ever terror attacks.
The king and queen inaugurated a new steel memorial at the heart of the European Union institutions based in Brussels.
A year on, Belgium remains on high alert with troops patrolling the streets and warnings of fresh risks from Islamic State jihadists. – AFP