ANALYSIS

Grim message that terrorists are out there ready to strike

THE latest vehicle attack on Parliament reminds us that the threat of mass bloodshed from terror has not gone away.

Our MI5 officers are investigating almost 700 live plots – a massive increase by almost 200 since last year.

Nobody should be lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that terrorism seemed to have gone quiet.

It is often said by people who work in counter-terrorism that every day we enjoy of no terror attacks is a day closer to the next attack.

MI5 is hugely stretched and has files on several thousand possible jihadists whose twisted beliefs could explode into violence suddenly at any time.

So it is going to happen. It is early days to say exactly what caused this mystery attacker to visit horror once again on our streets but sources say he could well be a “lone wolf”, with a very sinister twist.

It is just possible he – or perhaps a master plotter – thought very carefully about his attack and instead of trying to kill pedestrians or police, he was trying to get into Parliament itself.

His angle of approach, turning sharp right once on Parliament Square then veering left on the wrong side of the road gave him a better angle of approach.

The natural way would be to turn left but the barriers are angled to deflect impact from that approach and reduce the speed and impact of a car which is being driven straight at them.

Instead he gained speed and hit the barriers at an angle that gave him the greatest chance of smashing his way in.

His aim may have been simply to create panic and terror and that’s what he did.

But police must have considered a likely aim of the driver – to penetrate the supposedly safe Parliament.

But even had he done this, without a bomb in the boot and MPS on holiday, what damage could he inflict on Westminster?

This could explain the unusually wide cordon police erected so soon around the crash site – because they suspected the driver may have been carrying a bomb.

Thankfully there were no explosives recovered.