The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
UK on highest alert after Tube bomb
Police chasing down suspects of London Tube attack
Twenty-nine people were injured when an improvised bomb exploded on a Tube train in London yesterday. The hunt for the perpetrator of the terror attack is under way.
Britain is on the highest terror alert with the military set to bolster security as police hunt the Parsons Green bomb suspects.
Prime Minister Theresa May has raised the threat level to critical, meaning another attack is expected imminently.
A manhunt is under way after the improvised explosive device sent a fireball through a London Underground train carriage in south west London during yesterday’s morning rush-hour.
Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley suggested there may have been more than one person involved, stating that police were “chasing down suspects”.
In a statement outside Scotland Yard, the UK’s most senior anti-terror police officer said: “Somebody has planted an improvised explosive device on the Tube – we have to be open-minded at this stage about him and about potential associates.”
The Islamic State (IS) terror group has claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq news agency, according to the US-based Site Intelligence.
It is the second time this year that the threat assessment – made by the Joint-Terrorism Analysis Centre – has been raised to the highest level.
It was placed at critical in May in the wake of the Manchester bombing, before being lowered back to severe four days later. Before this year the most serious category had only been reached on two other occasions since it was first publicly disclosed in August 2006.
Rita Katz, the director of Site, said IS claimed the bombing was the work of a “detachment” rather than simply a “soldier”, which she suggested implied it was a coordinated attack.
Although it released a formal communique for the attacks, which injured 29 people, it provided no details on who the attacker or attackers were, Site said.
The terror group has frequently declared it was behind terrorist incidents in recent years but experts have warned their claims should be treated with caution.
As Britain faced up to another terrorist incident, following four attacks already this year, 29 patients needed hospital treatment, with a number of those hurt suffering from burns.