Londoners determined to show spirit after attack
LONDON — When crisis hits their city, Londoners are quick to evoke “the Blitz Spirit.”
Few people now living in the capital experienced those long months in 1940 when Germany pounded London in nightly bombing raids. But residents are still proud of their city’s stoicism in the period before the United States joined World War II.
The morning after a terrorist — claimed Thursday by the Islamic State group as one of its “soldiers” — killed four people in an attack outside Parliament, they were determined to show that Blitz Spirit again.
In Trafalgar Square on Thursday, parties of schoolchildren gathered for visits to the National Gallery. On Oxford Street the usual crowds surged toward the shops. And for commuters to offices all over the city, the London underground was as crowded as on any other working day.
The tone was set by Prime Minister Theresa May, who told a packed House of Commons that MPs were meeting as normal to deliver the message, “We are not afraid.”
Ms. May said that throughout London and elsewhere in the U.K., Britons were going about their lives as they do every day. Those “millions of acts of normalcy” were the best response to terrorism, she said.
The prime minister was speaking after the House held a minute’s silence for police Constable Keith Palmer. A man who had just driven his car into pedestrians on nearby Westminster Bridge stabbed the 48-year-old officer to death at the gates of Parlia-ment.
Three other people were killed. Kurt W. Cochran, 54, from Utah, was celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary in London with his wife, Melissa. She was seriously injured and remains
hospitalized.
Another victim, 43-yearold Aysha Frade, worked at a college in central London and was reported to be on her way to collect her two young children from school when she died.
An unidentified 75-yearold victim on the bridge died late Thursday of his wounds, police said.
More than 30 others were injured by the speeding Hyundai rental car. They included British students and visitors from several European nations, from China and South Korea.
After a long night of investigations, including raids on six premises and eight arrests, police named the attacker as British citizen Khalid Masood. He was shot dead at the scene by an armed police officer who was praised Thursday by Ms. May. She said the assailant had failed to get more than 20 yards inside Parliament because, “The police heroically did their job.”
Masood was known to the police for a string of past convictions for assaults and weapons possession. Last convicted in 2003 for possession of a knife, the 52-yearold had never been accused of any terrorism-related crimes.
Police believe the attacker acted alone, Ms. May told lawmakers, with no reason to believe “imminent further attacks” are planned. Britain’s threat level from terrorism stands at “severe,” the second-highest on a five-point scale, meaning an attack is highly likely.
One of the recent arrests was in London, while the others were in Birmingham. Police said they were searching properties in Birmingham, London and Wales.
Many suspects in British terrorist attacks and plots have had roots in Birmingham, England’s second-largest city, and several local mosques have been linked to extremist clerics.
A home raided in Birmingham was one where Masood lived until late last year, a neighbor said.
British authorities have announced no links between the suspect and IS, but the radical group has often independently asserted ties to attacks around the world.
While investigations continued, Parliament remained completely sealed off to the public Thursday. Whitehall, the long avenue lined with government departments, was closed to traffic and eerily quiet.
But groups of tourists wandered down its broad sidewalks, battling an icy wind and stopping occasionally to ask police officers for directions. Few seemed bothered by the yards of blue and white incident tape stretched between lampposts. Several stopped at Horse Guards for selfies with the Household Cavalry guards mounted on horseback, as they are every day.
The major difference Londoners and visitors would have noticed was the very visible police presence, including far more armed police officers than residents of the city are accustomed to. The head of counterterrorism at the Metropolitan Police, Mark Rowley, said some leave had been canceled; other officers had their hours on duty extended. “We are working to make sure that we can be out in force to reassure the public,” he said.
The U.K. public, and particularly Londoners, did not seem to need much reassurance. Many remember the regular bombings carried out in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s by the Irish Republican Army. In one attack, in 1991, mortars were fired into Downing Street. One landed in the backyard of the prime minister’s residence.
That led to strengthened security measures at the entrance to Downing Street. After Wednesday’s sudden and violent assault on Parliament, defense Secretary Michael Fallon said security at the heart of British government would be reviewed.
But London Mayor Sadiq Kahn likely spoke for many in his city when he told the BBC the capital would “never be cowed by terror.” Mr. Kahn, who called for a candlelight vigil in Trafalgar Square on Thursday evening, said that despite the shock of events in Westminster, Londoners would get on with their normal lives. “Because that is who we are,” he said.
Across the English Channel in Antwerp, Belgium, authorities were placed on high alert after a man tried to drive a car carrying weapons, including a gun, into a pedestrian zone.
Belgian police said the car, with French license plates, sped onto the street, forcing people to jump out of the way. Belgian federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sijpt identified the driver as a French citizen, Mohamed R., 39, and said a long knife, gun and container containing an unidentified substance were found in the trunk.
It was one day after Belgium observed the anniversary of the deadliest attack on its soil, when suicide bombers in Brussels assaulted the main airport and a subway station, killing 32 people.
Antwerp is the second most important hub for radicalization in Belgium, and only Brussels has sent more people from the country to fight for Islamists in Syria.