Australia to increase security in wake of deadly assault near British parliament

SYDNEY — Australia will increase security around the country’s parliament on Thursday in the wake of a deadly attack in London, the country’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.

Four people were killed and at least 20 injured in London on Wednesday after a car ploughed into pedestrians and an attacker stabbed a policeman close to the British parliament in what police called a “marauding terrorist attack.”

Mr. Turnbull, who will welcome Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at parliament in Canberra later in the day, said the London attack reinforced the imminent threat faced by Australia.

“We work very, very closely with our allies, including the United Kingdom and the United States and many other partners around the world,” Mr. Turnbull told reporters. “But we must be clear-eyed about the risk. It is real and that is why terror threat level is set at probable.”

Australia, a staunch US ally, has been on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown radicals since 2014 and authorities have said they have thwarted a number of plots. There have been several “lone wolf” assaults, including a 2014 cafe siege in Sydney that left two hostages and the gunman dead.

Meanwhile, Poland’s prime minister drew a link on Thursday between an attack in London targeting the British parliament and the European Union’s migrant policy, saying the assault vindicated Warsaw’s refusal to take in refugees.

Poland’s right-wing, eurosceptic government has refused to accept any of the 6,200 migrants allocated to it under the European Union’s quota scheme that is designed to share the burden of taking in the large numbers of migrants and refugees who have come to Europe over the past two years.

“I hear in Europe very often: do not connect the migration policy with terrorism, but it is impossible not to connect them,” Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo told private broadcaster TVN24.

Earlier this week the EU’s migration commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, on a visit to Warsaw, warned member states against failing to host refugees to help alleviate pressure on frontline states bearing the brunt of arrivals across the Mediterranean.

“The commissioner should concentrate on what to do to avoid such acts as yesterday in London ... Poland will not succumb to blackmail such as that expressed by the commissioner,” Ms. Szydlo said.

“The commissioner is coming to Warsaw and trying to tell us: you have to do what the EU decided, you have to take these migrants ... Two days later another terrorist attack in London occurs,” she said.

The leader of Ms. Szydlo’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said back in 2015 that refugees could bring diseases and parasites to Poland, which is staunchly Roman Catholic and has very few Muslim immigrants.

The migrant issue is just one of several over which Poland is at odds with the EU.

Also on Thursday, Ms. Szydlo said Poland might not accept a declaration EU leaders are due to endorse in Rome this month that will chart the bloc’s course after Britain leaves unless it addresses issues Warsaw considers crucial. —