Our resolve won’t waver in face of terror — May
LONDON ATTACKER IS BRITISH-BORN; EIGHT ARRESTED IN RAIDS
Prime Minister Theresa May identified the London attacker as a British-born man known to intelligence services. “An act of terrorism tried to silence our democracy,” May told a packed House of Commons, which stood for a minute’s silence in remembrance of the victims of Wednesday’s strike on the symbol of Britain’s democracy.
“We are not afraid and our resolve will never waver in the face of terrorism,” May said.
Britain’s plan to begin the formal process of leaving the European Union on March 29 will not be delayed by the attack, May’s spokesman said yesterday.
The Daesh group has claimed responsibility for the attack and police identified the assailant as Khalid Masoud, a 52-year-old Briton with criminal convictions.
“The perpetrator of yesterday’s attack in front of the British parliament was a soldier of the Islamic State [Daesh] and the operation was carried out in response to calls to target coalition countries,” the terror group’s Amaq propaganda agency said citing a “security source.”
Armed police have arrested eight people in raids on six houses in London, the central city of Birmingham and elsewhere, linked to the car rampage that left three people dead and the fatal stabbing of a police officer outside the parliament.
Defiant British lawmakers returned to “business as usual” in the surreal silence of an area of central London normally thronged with tourists.
Twenty-nine people were treated in hospital, including seven in critical condition, some with “catastrophic” injuries. Among them were French school children and foreign tourists.
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 capital’s transport system in July 2005.
Meanwhile, Belgian security forces arrested a French national yesterday after he tried to drive into a crowd of shoppers at high speed in the port city of Antwerp, officials said. Authorities found a rifle and bladed weapons in the car after the 39-year-old man tried to flee and was detained in the northern city, prosecutor said.
The lone attacker who carried out a deadly rampage in central London was a Britishborn man once investigated for possible extremist links, but was “not part of the current intelligence picture,” Britain’s prime minister said yesterdayy
British police named the man attacker as Khalid Masoud, saying he had a string of criminal convictions but none for terrorism-related offences.
Masoud, 52, was born in Kent to the southeast of London and had been most recently living in central England, London police said.
“Masoud was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack,” they 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 offences.” He had not been convicted previously for any terrorism offences, they said.
In a statement to the House of Commons, May said that the assailant was born in Britain and was once investigated by security services “in relations to concerns about violent extremism”
“He was a peripheral figure,” she added. “The case was historic. He was not part of the current intelligence picture. There was no prior intelligence of his intent or of the plot.”
The car rental company Enterprise confirmed yesterday that the car used in the terror attack was owned by them and rented in Birmingham.
The company said in a statement that the car “used in the tragic attack in London yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon was one of ours.”
The company says an employee identified the vehicle after seeing the licence plate in an online image. The company checked and immediately contacted authorities.
Meanwhile, police held at least eight people in sweeps in London and Birmingham linked to the investigation.
Mark Rowley, the acting deputy police commissioner, said: “It is still our belief, which continues to be borne out by our investigation, that this attacker acted alone and was inspired by international terrorism.”
Speaking outside the Scotland Yard headquarters, Rowley said that four people had died, including two members of the public, a police officer, and the attacker.
Yesterday, the police said that five people had died, but have since revised down that figure.
He also said that 29 people were being treated in hospital, with seven in critical condition.
“At this stage, we have no specific information about further threats to the public,” he said. A minute’s silence was observed in Parliament, Scotland Yard and London’s City Hall to honour the lives lost in the attack at 9:33am, in honour of slain police officer Keith Palmer’s shoulder number 933 on his uniform.
Tributes have been pouring in for Palmer, a 48-year-old husband and father who was unarmed at the time of the attack.
“He was a strong, professional public servant,” said the lawmaker James Cleverly in emotional speech in Parliament. Lawmakers also acknowledged Tobias Ellwood, a senior official at Foreign Office Minister who tried in vain to save Palmer’s life.
Michael Fallon, Britain’s Defence Secretary, said that the security arrangements at Parliament, which has a mix of armed and unarmed officers, would now be reviewed. But he stressed that that “Parliament cannot be hermetically sealed.”