IS claims responsibility for attack
Premier pledges to fight terrorism as British man named as assailant
BRITISH police yesterday identified the man who killed three people in a rampage outside parliament as a 52-year-old with a string of convictions but none for terror offences. The Islamic State (IS) group claimed the assailant behind the deadliest attack on British soil in 12 years had been one of its “soldiers” acting on a call to target countries in the US-led coalition fighting the jihadists.
Police named him as English-born Khalid Masood and said he had had convictions for assault, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences ranging from 1983 to 2003.
However, it said Masood had never been convicted of terrorism offences.
“[He] was not the subject of any investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack,” a police spokesman said.
Some media said Masood, reportedly a married father of three, was believed to have worked as an English teacher and had given that as his occupation when he rented the car used in Wednesday’s bloody rampage in London.
“He was a nice guy. I used to see him outside doing his garden,” Iwona Romek, a former neighbour of his, told the Birmingham Mail.
Masood was named after armed police arrested eight people in raids in London and Birmingham, an area where he had lived.
A defiant Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament yesterday Britain would not be cowed by the attack.
“An act of terrorism tried to silence our democracy,” May told the House of Commons, which stood for a minute’s silence in remembrance of the victims.
“We are not afraid and our resolve will never waver in the face of terrorism.”
Just hours after she spoke, Belgian police arrested a man as he tried to drive into a crowd at high speed in a shopping area in Antwerp.
That was the third incident in a week in Europe after London and a weekend attack at Orly Airport in Paris, and came a day after the first anniversary of the Brussels suicide bombings that killed 32 people and were also claimed by IS.
Hundreds of extra police were on patrol in London as officers worked around the clock to piece together what happened in the deadliest attack in Britain since four suicide bombers killed 52 people on the city’s transport system in 2005.
The IS group said it was responsible, according to the Amaq propaganda agency, its first claim of an attack on British soil.
“The perpetrator of [the] attack in front of the British parliament was a soldier of the Islamic State and the operation was carried out in response to calls to target coalition countries,” Amaq said, citing a “security source”.
The latest attack had echoes of the atrocities in Nice and Berlin when trucks ploughed into crowds of people, killing 86 people in the French Riviera city in July and 12 at a market in the German capital just days before Christmas.
As the British flag flew at half-mast, lawmakers returned to “business as usual” in the surreal silence of an area in the heart of London normally thronged with tourists.
The UN Security Council also observed a minute of silence, as Britain’s allies vowed to stand by London in the fight against terrorism.
In his broad-daylight attack, Masood mowed down pedestrians with a car along Westminster Bridge – a busy traffic route and popular tourist spot with views of parliament and the Big Ben clock tower.
He then rammed the railings outside parliament and jumped out of the car, fatally stabbing unarmed police officer Keith Palmer, 48, before being shot dead.
The other victims were a 43-year-old British woman and an American in his 50s, while 29 people were treated in hospital, including French schoolchildren and foreign tourists.
May said the attacker had been a peripheral figure investigated over concerns about violent extremism.
“It is still our belief that this attacker acted alone and was inspired by international terrorism,” Britain’s top antiterror officer, Mark Rowley, said. – AFP
THIS week’s horror attack in London is the latest in a series of incidents to drive home the presence of fundamentalist militancy – and of those who identify with it – in Europe and beyond.
At least four people, including the attacker, were killed and about 40 injured.
The British-born man responsible ploughed through pedestrians along the landmark Westminster Bridge, then stabbed a police officer at the gates to parliament.
This was the deadliest assault on the British capital since the subway bombings of 2005 and it clearly mimicked tactics promoted by the Islamic State.
Similar rampages took place in Berlin in December and in Nice in France last July. Wednesday’s incident also fell on the one-year anniversary of the Brussels airport and metro attacks that left 32 people dead.
Here at the southern tip of Africa we should not be feeling safe and secure in the belief all these frightful acts are playing out far, far away from us. Terrorist cells are well established in several African countries and the Sunday Times reported in January that a bomb maker working for Isis was arrested as he was about to board a flight from Turkey to Johannesburg, allegedly to execute an attack here.
The worrying thing about the latest supposedly oneman attacks is that, unsophisticated as they are, they are fully capable of causing enormous disruption, injury and loss of life.
Even though British authorities had significantly stepped up security measures in recent months in the face of numerous threats, the very heart of their capital still proved disturbingly vulnerable.
A greater sense of vigilance, no matter which country or continent you call home, will have to become the order of the day.
As South Africans we need to start opening our eyes to possible extremist threats, and put preparedness and tighter policing at the top of our security agenda.