LONDON Is ON EDGE
Killer was under investigation, police arrest eight after Daesh attack
london — The attacker who killed three people near the British parliament before being shot dead was British-born and was once investigated by MI5 intelligence agents over concerns about violent extremism, Prime Minister Theresa May said, on Thursday. Police said his name was Khalid Masood, a 52-year man born in Britain.
The Daesh group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued by its Amaq news agency. But it gave no name or other details and it was not clear whether the attacker was directly connected to the group.
Police arrested eight people at six locations in London and Birmingham in the investigation into Wednesday’s lone-wolf attack that May said was inspired by a warped ideology.
About 40 people were injured and 29 remain in hospital, seven in critical condition, after the incident which resembled Daesh-inspired attacks in France and Germany where vehicles were driven into crowds.
The assailant sped across Westminster Bridge in a car, ploughing into pedestrians along the way, then ran through the gates of the nearby parliament building and fatally stabbed an unarmed policeman before being shot dead.
“What I can confirm is that the man was British-born and that some years ago he was once investigated by MI5 in relation to concerns about violent extremism,” May said in a statement to parliament.
“He was a peripheral figure...He was not part of the current intelligence picture. There was no prior intelligence of his intent or of the plot,” she said. The mayhem in London came on the first anniversary of attacks that killed 32 people in Brussels. Twelve people were killed in Berlin in December when a truck ploughed into a Christmas market and 84 died in July in a similar attack on the Nice waterfront for which Daesh claimed responsibility.
Daesh, which is being driven from large areas of Iraq and Syria by local forces supported by a US- led military coalition, said it was responsible for the London attack.
“The perpetrator of the attacks... is a Daesh soldier and he carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of the coalition,” a statement on its Amaq agency website said. —
paris — Militants are increasingly turning to vehicle-ramming attacks, like the one staged near Britain’s parliament on Wednesday, because they are cheap, easy to organise and hard to prevent.
Experts say the tactic of mowing people down avoids the need to obtain any explosives or weapons and can be carried out by a “lone-wolf ” attacker without using a network of fellow militants — all lessening the risk of alerting security agencies.
“This kind of attack doesn’t need special preparation, it is very lowcost, within anybody’s reach,” said Sebastien Pietrasanta, a French Socialist lawmaker and terrorism expert.
“It is often a case of individual action,” he told Reuters. “They can be quite spontaneous.”
Four people were killed and at least 20 injured in London after a car ploughed into pedestrians and an attacker stabbed a policeman close to parliament in what police called a “marauding terrorist attack”. The attacker was shot dead.
Trucks were used to devastating effect last year against crowds in Berlin and Nice, in contrast to more organised attacks that have already hit Paris and Madrid — as well as London in 2005 — using teams of bombers or gunmen.
Daesh claimed responsibility for both the Nice attack last July, when a truck killed 86 people celebrating Bastille Day, and for the Berlin attack in December, when a truck smashed through a Christmas market, killing 12 people.
While no group has yet claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attacks, Islamic State is under intense pressure in Syria and in Iraq, where one of its last strongholds, Mosul, is under assault from Iraqi forces backed by a coalition that Britain is part of.
Daesh encouraged readers of its online magazine Rumiyah in 2016 to use vehicles to kill and injure.
Vehicle attacks are not a new tactic in the Middle East.
In 2008, a Palestinian rammed a bulldozer into vehicles on a Jerusalem
My thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathy are with all those who have been affected by the awful violence. i know i speak for everyone in expressing my enduring thanks and admiration for the members of the Metropolitan Police Service and all who work so selflessly to help and protect others. Queen Elizabeth, British monarch
street before a visit by then US presidential candidate Barack Obama, wounding at least 16 people.
Another Palestinian drove his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem in January this year, killing four of them in an attack that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was likely to have been inspired by Daesh.
Former senior CIA analyst Paul Pillar said that, while concern had long focused on “sophisticated or high-tech methods of terrorist attack,
an act of terrorism tried to silence our democracy. We are not afraid and our resolve will never waver in the face of terrorism. Theresa May, British Prime Minister
the most readily available methods for killing a lot of innocent people have always been simple and require no sophistication or training.
“This includes mowing people down with a vehicle on any crowded city street. Locations might be chosen that have some other political or religious significance — such as a Christmas market, or the vicinity of a national parliament — but there always are vulnerable public places with lots of people,” he said. —