IS claims UK attack; police say man wasn’t on terror radar
LONDON » Authorities on Thursday identified a 52-year-old Briton as the man who mowed down pedestrians and stabbed a policeman to death outside Parliament, saying he had a long criminal record and once was investigated for extremism — but was not currently on a terrorism watch list.
As lawmakers returned to work a day after the rampage killed three people and injured at least 30, British Prime Minister Theresa May vowed: “We are not afraid.”
“Today we meet as normal — as generations have done before us, and as future generations will continue to do,” she said to cheers in the House of Commons.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, which police said was carried out by Khalid Masood, a U.K.born resident of the West Midlands in central England. Masood plowed a rented SUV into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge, killing an American man and a British woman and injuring more than 30 people of almost a dozen nationalities.
He fatally stabbed a policeman inside the gates of Parliament before being shot to death by an armed officer.
Vincenzo Mangiacarpe, an Italian boxer visiting Parliament, said he saw the attacker get out of the car wielding two knives.
“You can imagine if someone was playing a drum on your back with two knives — he gave him around 10 stabs in the back, then he left the policeman and he came toward us,” Mangiacarpe said.
The dead were identified as Kurt Cochran, 54, of Utah and British school administrator Aysha Frade, 43 — both struck on the bridge — and 48-year-old Constable Keith Palmer, a 15-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police.
Police arrested eight people — three women and five men — on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts as authorities sought Masood’s motive and possible support network. One arrest was in London, while the others were in the West Midlands city of Birmingham. Police said they were searching properties in Birmingham, London and Wales.
Masood’s convictions between 1983 and 2003 included assault, weapons possession and public order offenses, London police said.
He “was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack,” police added.
Many suspects in British terrorist attacks and plots have had roots in Birmingham, England’s secondlargest 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. Shown a photo of him, Iwona Romek said “that is 100 percent” the man who lived next door to her for about five months.
Romek said he had a wife and child of about 6, and would walk the child to school. He rarely left in the evening.
“He seemed like a normal family man who liked to take care of his garden,” she said. But one day she saw him packing their belongings in a black van he bought to replace a red Fiat, and then they were gone.
As police investigated, Parliament got back to business, opening the day with a minute’s silence for the victims.
May set the tone in the House of Commons, saluting the heroism of police and the ordinary actions of everyone who went about their lives in the aftermath.
“As I speak, millions will be boarding trains and airplanes to travel to London and to see for themselves the greatest city on Earth,” she said. “It is in these actions — millions of acts of normality — that we find the best response to terrorism. A response that denies our enemies their victory, that refuses to let them win.”