CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY
8 arrested in raids linked to attack on the symbol of Britain’s democracy
LONDON
FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 2017
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THERESA MAY, British prime minister each from China, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland and the United States, May said.
Three police officers were among those hurt, two of them seriously, and a seriously injured woman was rescued from the River Thames after coming off the bridge.
The attacker mowed down pedestrians with a car on Westminster Bridge, killing two, and then jumped out and stabbed to death a police officer, Keith Palmer, 48, guarding Parliament before being shot dead.
The other dead were Briton Aysha Frade and American Kurt Cochran.
The carnage was unleashed on the same day Brussels was marking the anniversary of IS bombings that killed 32 people.
It was the deadliest attack in Britain since four suicide bombers killed 52 people on the capital’s transport system in July 2005.
Britain’s top anti-terror officer Mark Rowley said police had arrested eight people in raids on six houses in Birmingham, here and elsewhere.
“It is our belief that this attacker acted alone and was inspired by international terrorism.”
The British flag over Parliament flew at half-mast in a sign of mourning while forensic officers carried out investigations at the courtyard outside where Palmer was stabbed to death.
Police officers lined up outside their new headquarters nearby for a minute’s silence.
Queen Elizabeth II said yesterday her thoughts were with the victims and expressed her “enduring admiration” for the police.
“My thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathy are with all those who have been affected by the awful violence.”
Among those in Parliament was Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood, whose face was left smeared with blood after giving first aid to Palmer.
United States President Donald Trump and French President Francois Hollande both spoke to May, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany stood with Britons “against all forms of terrorism”.
Britain’s last terror attack was the 2016 assassination of MP Jo Cox by a pro-Nazi sympathiser in her constituency in northern England shortly before the vote to leave the European Union.
May’s spokesman said there was no intention to delay the Article 50 two-year departure process for leaving the EU because of Wednesday’s attack. AFP