UK police treat Parleament crash as an act of terrorism
Police flooded LONDON — central London streets and cordoned off the city’s government district Tuesday, after a speeding car plowed into cyclists and crashed outside Parliament in what authorities were treating as an act of terrorism.
With the driver in custody, counterterror detectives were working to uncover the motive behind what they suspect is the fourth vehicle attack in Britain — and the second on Parliament — in 18 months.
“Given that this appears to be a deliberate act, the method and this being an iconic site, we are treating it as a terrorist incident,” Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, Britain’s top counterterror- ism officer, told reporters.
A rooftop camera recorded the silver Ford Fiesta driving past Parliament and suddenly veering sharply to the left, striking cyclists waiting at a set of lights, then cross- ing the road and crashing into a barrier outside Parliament. Armed police surrounded the car within sec- onds, pulling a man from the vehicle. Police said the driver was alone and no weapons were found in the car.
Three people were hurt, none critically.
Police arrested t he 29-year-old driver, a resi- dent of England’s Midlands region who was not previously known to counterter- rorism police or the intel- ligence services. Basu said the suspect was not cooperating with police.
Security Minister Ben Wallace said the man, whose name was not released, was a British citizen originally from another country.
Police said the car was driven from Birmingham in central England to London late Monday and was in cen- tral London for more than seven hours before the crash. Detectives were searching two properties in Birming- ham and one in another Midlands city, Nottingham.
Police said they did not believe there was any ongoing threat from Tuesday’s incident. After a meeting of the government’s crisis committee, COBRA, officials said Britain’s terrorism threat level would remain at “severe,” meaning an attack is highly likely. It has briefly been raised to the highest level, “critical,” after some previous attacks.
Prime Minister Theresa May, who was on vacation in Switzerland, praised “the formidable courage of our emergency services” and urged the public “to remain vigilant — but also to come together and carry on as nor- mal.”
“The twisted aim of the extremists is to use violence and terror to divide us,” May said in a statement. “They will never succeed.”
Police cars and ambulances flooded London’s government district just after 7:30 a.m., after witnesses reported seeing a silver car traveling at high speed hit pedestrians and cyclists, then crash into a barrier designed to protect Parliament from vehicle attack.
One injured person was treated at the scene and two were taken to hospitals, where they were treated and released.
“The car drove at speed into the barriers outside the House of Lords. There was a loud bang from the collision and a bit of smoke,” Ewelina Ochab told The Associated Press. “The driver did not get out. The guards started screaming to people to move away.”
Police shut the nearby Westminster subway station, and asked people to stay away from the area, which is filled with government offices and major tourist attractions, including Westminster Abbey.
The early morning scenes brought a sickly sense of deja vu to many London- ers, whose city has been a target of violent attacks over the decades — from Irish mil- itants, Islamic jihadists and far-right extremists.
British authorities say the threat is not diminishing. Since March 2017 they have foiled 13 Islamist-inspired plots and four far-right plots, and currently have 676 live counterterrorism investiga- tions, officials said Tuesday.
This time, there was relief that no one was killed and that there was a quick return to normality. Most of the cor- dons were lifted by mid-af- ternoon, apart from a stretch of road right outside Parlia- ment, where forensics offi- cers in blue coveralls col- lected evidence from the crashed Ford Fiesta.