Tag Archives: Terrorist Attack

Militants drive van into people on London Bridge, stab others

Police attend to an incident on London Bridge in London, Britain, June 3, 2017. Reuters / Hannah McKay

By Megan Revell and William Schomberg

LONDON (Reuters) – Attackers drove a van at high speed into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing people in the nearby Borough Market area of bars and restaurants on Saturday in what British authorities described as terrorist incidents.

Armed police rushed to the scene and authorities urged Londoners on Twitter to “run, hide, tell” if they were caught in an attack. The BBC cited police as saying there had been more than one fatality.

Britain’s Sun newspaper said seven people were feared killed and that two attackers were shot dead by police near London Bridge; but there was no immediate confirmation of this. Some media reports said police were seeking another attacker.

The attacks come days ahead of a June 8 election and less than two weeks after a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a pop concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande in Manchester in northern England. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The BBC showed a photograph of two possible London attackers shot by police, one of whom had canisters strapped to his body.

A Reuters reporter said some time after the attack began that he had heard loud bangs near the Borough Market area.

Witnesses described a white van veering into pedestrians near London Bridge and knocking over several people.

“A van came from London Bridge itself, went between the traffic light system and rammed it towards the steps,” a taxi driver told the BBC. “It knocked loads of people down.

“Then three men got out with long blades, 12 inches long and went randomly along Borough High Street stabbing people at random.”

Islamic State earlier on Saturday sent out a call on instant messaging service Telegram urging its followers to launch attacks with trucks, knives and guns against “Crusaders” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Similar attacks, in Berlin, Nice, Brussels and Paris, have been carried out by militants over the past couple of years.

“Following updates from police and security officials, I can confirm that the terrible incident in London is being treated as a potential act of terrorism,” Prime Minister Theresa May said.

London’s river Thames police said it was working with the lifeboat rescue service to help evacuate people caught up in the attack, described by police as a terrorist incident.

U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter to offer U.S. help to Britain. The White House said he had been briefed on the incidents by his national security team.

One woman told Reuters she saw what appeared to be three people with knife wounds and possibly their throats cut at London Bridge at the Thames river. Reuters was unable to immediately verify her account.

People flee as police attend to an incident near London Bridge in London, Britain, June 4, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall

People flee as police attend to an incident near London Bridge in London, Britain, June 4, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall

STABBINGS ON THE STREET

Police said they fired shots after reports of stabbings in the nearby Borough Market area. They also responded to an incident in the Vauxhall area further west, but later said it was unconnected to the van and knife attacks.

Streets around London Bridge and Borough Market, fashionable districts packed with bars and restaurants, would have been busy with people on a Saturday night out. BBC showed dozens of people, evidently caught up in the attack, being escorted through a police cordon with their hands on their heads.

BBC radio said witnesses saw people throwing tables and chairs at the perpetrators of the attack to protect themselves.

One witness told the BBC she saw a speeding white van veering into pedestrians at London Bridge. That witness said the van hit five to six people. Reuters television pictures showed dozens of emergency vehicles in the area around London Bridge.

The incident bore similarities to a March attack on Westminster Bridge, west of London Bridge, in which a man killed five people after driving into a crowd of pedestrians before stabbing a police officer in the grounds of parliament.

Several witnesses also reported hearing gunshots.

“We were in an Uber (taxi) going towards London Bridge and suddenly we saw people running. The Uber stopped, we asked people what was going on – people said there was shooting,” said Yoann Belmere, 40, a French banker living in London.

“Now the area is completely closed with police cars going one way and ambulances going the other,” he told Reuters.

A witness told CNN two men had entered a restaurant in the Borough Market area near London Bridge and stabbed two people inside. He said a waitress was stabbed in the throat and a man was stabbed in the back.

The Manchester bombing on May 22 was the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, when four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on London’s transport network.

Idle buses are seen from the west side of London Bridge after an incident in the area in London, Britain June 4, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall

Idle buses are seen from the west side of London Bridge after an incident in the area in London, Britain June 4, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Nick Tattersall; additional reporting by Ralph Boulton, David Milliken and Paul Sandle; Editing by William Schomberg and Ralph Boulton)

North American leagues urge vigilance after Manchester attack

A man looks at flowers for the victims of the Manchester Arena attack in central Manchester, Britain May 23, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

By Rory Carroll

(Reuters) – North America’s major sports leagues have strict safety procedures at their arenas but have urged fans attending games to be vigilant following Monday’s suicide bombing at a pop concert in Manchester, England, officials said on Tuesday.

The attack, which killed 22 people, has raised concerns in the U.S. ahead of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, when fans flock to baseball stadiums to kick off the summer.

It also comes during the playoffs for the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Basketball Association (NBA), high-profile games that typically take place before sold-out crowds.

“We already have a very thorough and detailed security plan in place at all of our arenas to ensure the safety of our fans,” said Bill Daly, deputy commissioner of the NHL.

“Obviously, with yesterday’s events, arenas have been reminded to re-double their efforts and to maximize their vigilance”

The league requests that anyone attending a game report anything that they observe as suspicious or out of the ordinary to law enforcement, security or arena personnel, he said.

An NBA official echoed that sentiment.

“We are in communication with the appropriate authorities and taking all necessary precautions to ensure the safety of our fans, teams and staff,” said Mike Bass, an NBA spokesman.

League officials typically do not share the specifics of their security measures for safety reasons.

The attacker in Manchester targeted Europe’s largest indoor arena, which was full to its 21,000 capacity, about the size of most NHL and NBA arenas.

Major League Baseball, which recently began its season and mostly plays its games in outdoor stadiums that are larger than NHL and NBA arenas, has a similar approach to fellow leagues.

“Fan safety and ballpark security are always our top priorities, and we will continue to do everything possible to provide a safe environment for our fans,” the league said in a statement to Reuters.

The National Football League, which has some stadiums that hold more than 80,000 people, is currently in its off-season.

(Editing by Ken Ferris)

British police name suicide bomber, May condemns ‘sickening’ attack

A girl leaves flowers for the victims of an attack on concert goers at Manchester Arena, in central Manchester, Britain May 23, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

By Michael Holden and Andy Bruce

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – British police on Tuesday identified the suicide bomber who killed 22 people, including children, in an attack on a crowded concert hall in Manchester, and said they were trying to establish whether he had acted alone or with help from others.

The man suspected of carrying out Britain’s deadliest bombing in nearly 12 years was named as Salman Abedi, aged 22, but police declined to give further details about him.

U.S. security sources, citing British intelligence officials, said he was born in Manchester in 1994 to parents of Libyan origin. He is believed to have traveled by train from London before the attack, they said.

“Our priority, along with the police counter-terrorism network and our security partners, is to continue to establish whether he was acting alone or working as part of a wider network,” Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said.

The attacker set off his improvised bomb as crowds streamed out of the Manchester Arena after a pop concert by Ariana Grande, a U.S. singer who is especially popular with teenage girls.

“All acts of terrorism are cowardly,” Prime Minister Theresa May said outside her Downing Street office after a meeting with security and intelligence chiefs.

“But this attack stands out for its appalling sickening cowardice, deliberately targeting innocent, defenseless children and young people who should have been enjoying one of the most memorable nights of their lives.”

Islamic State, now being driven from territories in Syria and Iraq by Western-backed armed forces, claimed responsibility for what it called a revenge attack against “Crusaders”, but there appeared to be contradictions in its account of the operation.

Police raided houses in Manchester and arrested a 23-year-old man.

FRANTIC SEARCHES

Witnesses related the horror of the blast, which unleashed a stampede just as the concert ended at Europe’s largest indoor arena, full to its capacity of 21,000.

“We ran and people were screaming around us and pushing on the stairs to go outside and people were falling down, girls were crying, and we saw these women being treated by paramedics having open wounds on their legs … it was just chaos,” said Sebastian Diaz, 19. “It was literally just a minute after it ended, the lights came on and the bomb went off.”

A video posted on Twitter showed fans, many of them young, screaming and running from the venue. Dozens of parents frantically searched for their children, posting photos and pleading for information on social media.

Singer Grande, 23, said on Twitter she was devastated: “broken. from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don’t have words.”

The attack was the deadliest in the UK since four British Muslims killed 52 people in suicide bombings on London’s transport system in 2005. But it will have reverberations far beyond British shores.

Attacks in cities including Paris, Nice, Brussels, St Petersburg, Berlin and London have shocked Europeans already anxious over security challenges from mass immigration and pockets of domestic Islamist radicalism. Islamic State has repeatedly called for attacks as retaliation for Western involvement in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

While claiming responsibility on its Telegram account, the group appeared to contradict the police description of a suicide bomber. It suggested explosive devices were placed “in the midst of the gatherings of the Crusaders”.

“What comes next will be more severe on the worshippers of the cross,” the Telegram posting said.

It did not name the bomber, as it usually does in attacks it has ordered, and appeared also to contradict a posting on another Islamic State account, Amaq, which spoke of “a group of attackers”. That reference, however, was later removed.

“DEPRAVED”

May said security services were working to see if a wider group was involved in the attack, which fell less than three weeks before a national election. Campaigning was suspended as a mark of respect.

May spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and several other foreign leaders on Tuesday about the attack, her spokesman said. She also visited the police headquarters and a children’s hospital in Manchester.

The White House said Trump had agreed with May during their telephone conversation that the attack was “particularly wanton and depraved”.

Macron and senior French ministers walked to the British embassy in Paris to sign the condolence book.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it “will only strengthen our resolve to…work with our British friends against those who plan and carry out such inhumane deeds”.

The U.N. Security Council condemned “the barbaric and cowardly terrorist attack” and expressed solidarity with Britain in the fight against terrorism.

Queen Elizabeth held a minute’s silence at a garden party at Buckingham Palace in London.

Manchester remained on high alert, with additional armed police drafted in. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said more police had been ordered onto the streets of the British capital.

Police raided a property in the Manchester district of Fallowfield where they carried out a controlled explosion. Witnesses in another area, Whalley Range, said armed police had surrounded a newly built apartment block on a usually quiet tree-lined street.

On Tuesday evening thousands of people attended a vigil for the dead in central Manchester.

British police do not routinely carry firearms, but London police said extra armed officers would be deployed at this weekend’s soccer cup final at Wembley and rugby at Twickenham. Security would be reviewed also for smaller events.

In March, a British-born convert to Islam plowed a car into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge, killing four people before stabbing to death a police officer who was on the grounds of parliament. The man was shot dead at the scene.

In 2015, Pakistani student Abid Naseer was convicted in a U.S. court of conspiring with al Qaeda to blow up the Arndale shopping center in the center of Manchester in April 2009.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Smout, Kate Holton, David Milliken, Elizabeth Piper, Paul Sandle and Costas Pitas in LONDON, Mark Hosenball in LOS ANGELES, John Walcott in WASHINGTON, D.C., Leela de Kretser in NEW YORK, Omar Fahmy in CAIRO and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; writing by Guy Faulconbridge, Nick Tattersall and Gareth Jones; editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Taliban attackers kill at least 140 soldiers at Afghan base: officials

FILE PHOTO: Afghan national Army (ANA) troops keep watch near the site of an attack on an army headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif, northern Afghanistan April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Anil Usyan

By Abdul Matin and Hamid Shalizi

MAZAR-I-SHARIF/KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) – At least 140 Afghan soldiers were killed by Taliban attackers apparently disguised in military uniforms, officials said on Saturday, in what would be the deadliest attack ever on an Afghan military base.

One official in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where the attack occurred, said on Saturday at least 140 soldiers were killed and many others wounded. Other officials said the toll was likely to be even higher.

They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the government has yet to release exact casualty figures.

The defense ministry said more than 100 soldiers were killed or wounded.

The attack starkly highlighted the struggle by the Afghan government and its international backers to defeat a Taliban insurgency that has gripped Afghanistan for more than a decade.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visited the base on Saturday, and in a statement online, condemned the attack as “cowardly” and the work of “infidels”.

As many as 10 Taliban fighters, dressed in Afghan army uniforms and driving military vehicles, made their way into the base and opened fire on mostly unarmed soldiers eating and leaving a mosque after Friday prayers, according to officials.

They used rocket-propelled grenades and rifles, and several detonated suicide vests packed with explosive, officials said.

Witnesses described a scene of confusion as soldiers were uncertain who the attackers were.

“It was a chaotic scene and I didn’t know what to do,” said one army officer wounded in the attack. “There was gunfire and explosions everywhere.”

The base is the headquarters for the Afghan National Army’s 209th Corps, responsible for much of northern Afghanistan, including Kunduz, a province which has seen heavy fighting.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Saturday the attack on the base was retribution for recent killing of several senior Taliban leaders in northern Afghanistan.

On Saturday, the U.S. military command in Kabul said that an American air strike killed a Taliban commander, Quari Tayib, on April 17. Eight other Taliban were also killed the strike, according to a statement by the command.

Mujahid said the attack on the base killed as many as 500 soldiers, including senior commanders.

Four of the attackers were Taliban sympathizers who had infiltrated the army and served for some time, Mujahid said.

That has not been confirmed by the Afghan army.

The NATO-led military coalition deploys advisers to the base where the attack occurred to train and assist Afghan forces but coalition officials said no foreign troops were hurt or killed.

“The attack on the 209th Corps today shows the barbaric nature of the Taliban,” the commander of coalition forces, U.S. General John Nicholson, said in a statement on Friday.

German forces have long led the international mission in northern Afghanistan.

In Berlin, military officials said advising missions on the base will be on hold for one or two days while the Afghan army investigates, but that work would resume.

“The situation shows that we cannot stop supporting, training and advising our Afghan partners,” a German Operations Command spokesman said.

(Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Suspect in Stockholm truck attack admits terrorist crime

Policemen guard next to the court before the detention hearing of suspect in Friday's attack in Stockholm, Sweden April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Anna Ringstrom

By Anna Ringstrom and Johannes Hellstrom

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A failed asylum-seeker accused of ramming a truck into a Stockholm crowd last week, killing four people, has confessed to committing a terrorist crime, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Uzbekistan man Rakhmat Akilov, wanted for deportation at the time of Friday’s attack, made his first court appearance, entering the heavily guarded courtroom with a green sweater over his head and flanked by his lawyer and a translator.

Police say they believe the 39-year-old hijacked a beer truck and drove it into a busy pedestrian street in the Swedish capital before crashing into a department store.

Two Swedes, a British man and a Belgian woman were killed in the attack. Fifteen were injured. Eight people remain in hospital, including two in intensive care.

The attack has shattered any sense Swedes had of being insulated from the militant violence that has hit other parts of Europe, but has prompted defiance from Prime Minister Stefan Lofven who says Sweden will remain an open, tolerant society.

Akilov, who was asked by the judge to remove the sweater from his head, made no comment at the start of the hearing. His lawyer, Johan Eriksson, told the court that his client had admitted the crime. The judge then ordered the hearing to proceed behind closed doors.

Eriksson later told reporters outside the court that Akilov has described his motives to authorities, but the judge had ordered the lawyer not to discuss details of the case in public.

“He has not just confessed. He has provided information, he is answering questions,” Eriksson said.

Akilov was arrested just hours after the truck attack on the highest level of suspicion in the Swedish legal system. He had already been wanted by police for failing to comply with a deportation order after being denied permanent residency.

The judge on Tuesday remanded Akilov in custody for a month. Police have said it could take up to a year to complete the initial investigation into the attack.

Police say Akilov has expressed sympathies with extremist organisations. Security services have said that he had figured in intelligence reports but they had not viewed him as a militant threat.

A Facebook page appearing to belong to him showed he was following a group called “Friends of Libya and Syria”, dedicated to exposing “terrorism of the imperialistic financial capitals” of the United States, Britain and Arab “dictatorships”.

Legal documents show Akilov had asked for Eriksson to be replaced by a Sunni Muslim lawyer, but the court denied his request.

“We have a good relationship and we are working together in this case,” Eriksson said on Tuesday.

Sweden’s prosecution authority said on Tuesday it had revoked the arrest of a second, unidentified suspect in connection with the truck attack.

However, this man would remain in custody due to an earlier decision that he be expelled from Sweden, the authority said.

“According to the prosecutor, the suspicions have weakened and there is, therefore, no ground to apply for a detention order,” it said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Stockholm Newsroom; Editing by Niklas Pollard and Mark Bendeich)

Russian metro bomb suspect a Muslim born in central Asia: investigators

People leave candles in memory of victims of a blast in St.Petersburg metro, at Tekhnologicheskiy institut metro station in St. Petersburg, Russia, April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Grigory Dukor

By Denis Pinchuk and Hulkar Isamova

OSH, Kyrgyzstan/ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) – A Russian suicide bomber originally from mainly Muslim Kyrgyzstan detonated the explosives in a St Petersburg train carriage that killed 14 people and wounded 50, authorities said on Tuesday.

The suspect had radical Islamist links, Russian media cited law enforcement officials as saying, raising the possibility Monday’s attack could have been inspired by Islamic State, which has not struck a major city in Russia before. So far, no-one has claimed responsibility for the blast.

Kyrgyz officials identified the suspect as Akbarzhon Jalilov, born in the city of Osh in 1995, and Russian officials confirmed his identity, saying he had also left a bomb found at another metro station before it went off.

Biographical details pieced together from social media and Russian officials suggested Jalilov was an fairly typical young St Petersburg resident with an interest in Islam as well as pop music and martial arts but no obvious links to militants.

His uncle, Eminzhon Jalilov, told Reuters by telephone that his nephew was a mosque-attending Muslim, but that he was “not a fanatic”.

The explosion in the middle of Monday afternoon occurred when the train was in a tunnel deep underground, amplifying the force of the blast. The carriage door was blown off, and witnesses described seeing injured passengers with bloodied and blackened bodies.

State investigative authorities said fragments of the body of the suspect had been found among the dead, indicating that he was a suicide bomber.

“From the genetic evidence and the surveillance cameras there is reason to believe that the person behind the terrorist act in the train carriage was the same one who left a bag with an explosive device at the Ploshchad Vosstaniya station,” they said in a statement.

Russia has been on alert against attacks in reprisal for its military intervention in Syria, where Moscow’s forces have been supporting troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad against Western-backed armed groups as well as the hardline Islamic State (IS) which grew out of the conflict.

IS, now under attack by all sides in Syria’s multi-faceted war, has repeatedly threatened revenge and been linked to recent bombings elsewhere in Europe.

If it is confirmed that the metro bomber was linked to radical Islamists, it could provoke anger among some Russians at Moscow’s decision to intervene in Syria, a year before an election which President Vladimir Putin is expected to win.

PREVIOUS BOMBING

Officials said they were treating the blast as an act of terrorism, but there was no official confirmation of any link to Islamist radicals.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was cynical to say the bombing in St Petersburg was revenge for Russia’s role in Syria. He said the attack showed that Moscow needed to press on with its fight against global terrorism.

A page on social media site VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, belonging to someone with the same name and year of birth as Jalilov, included photos of him relaxing with friends in a bar, smoking from a hookah pipe. He was dressed in jackets and a baseball cap.

A Reuters reporter visited a house in Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan, which neighbors said was the family home of Jalilov. The home, a modest but well-maintained one-storey brick building, was empty.

Neighbors said Jalilov was from a family of ethnic Uzbeks, and that while they knew his parents they had not seen the young man for years. They said his father worked as a panel-beater in a car repair shop.

“They are a very good family. Always friendly, never argue. And they have good kids,” one of the neighbors, Mirkomil Akhmadaliyev, told Reuters.

Later on Tuesday, Jalilov’s mother appeared but refused to speak to reporters, saying she needed to retrieve something and hurry back to a security service office.

Osh is part of the Fergana Valley, a fertile strip of land that straddles Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan which is mainly populated by ethnic Uzbeks. It has a tradition of Islamist radicalism and hundreds of people have set out from the area to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

A blast at a nightclub in Istanbul on New Year’s Eve that killed 39 people involved a suspect from the same part of central Asia. The bomber in that attack said he had been acting under the direction of IS militants in Syria.

Jalilov’s uncle said his nephew moved to Russia in 2012. He is registered at an upscale apartment in the north of St Petersburg, according to a source in the Russian authorities, and he has a Daewoo Nexia car registered in his name.

A man who said he was a representative of the apartment’s owner told Reuters that Jalilov had never actually lived there, but had given the address as his residence in official documents.

His VKontakte page included links to a site featuring sayings from Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, an eighteenth century preacher on whose teaching Wahhabism, a conservative and hardline branch of Islam, is based. But there were no links to Islamist militants.

PUTIN VISIT “NOTEWORTHY”

Russia’s health minister Veronika Skvortsova said on Tuesday that the death toll from the blast, which hit at 2:40 p.m. (1140 GMT), had risen to 14, with 50 wounded.

St Petersburg television showed footage of the corpse of a man they said was the perpetrator. The man, with a close-cropped beard, resembled footage of a young man wearing a blue beanie hat and a jacket with a fur-lined hood captured on closed circuit television identified by Russian media as a suspect.

“It has been ascertained that an explosive device could have been detonated by a man, fragments of whose body were found in the third carriage of the train,” Russia’s state investigative committee said in a statement.

“The man has been identified but his identity will not be disclosed for now in the interests of the investigation,” the statement added.

President Putin, who was visiting St Petersburg at the time of the blast, went to the site late on Monday.

The Kremlin said it was “noteworthy” that Putin had been in the city. It did not elaborate, but said such attacks on Russia were a challenge for every citizen, including the president.

Two years ago, Islamic State said it had brought down a plane carrying Russian tourists home from a Red Sea resort. All 224 people on board the flight were killed.

Monday’s blast raised security fears beyond Russian frontiers. France, which has itself suffered a series of attacks, announced additional security measures in Paris.

(Additional reporting by Svetlana Reiter, Katya Golubkova, Polina Nikolskaya, Sujata Rao, Alexander Winning and Maria Tsvetkova in MOSCOW and Olga Dzyubenko in BISHKEK, writing by Philippa Fletcher; editing by Christian Lowe and Sonya Hepinstall)

Police erect new security barriers around Queen’s Windsor castle after London attack

An armed police officer guards an entrance to Windsor Castle, near to where security barriers have been placed. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

LONDON (Reuters) – Police erected new barriers around Queen Elizabeth’s Windsor Castle home on Tuesday to boost protection a week after a man killed four people in an attack around parliament in central London.

The additional measures followed a review of security at Windsor, the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world located about 20 miles (32 km) to the west of the British capital, police said.

The new barriers were put in place ahead of the regular “Changing the Guard” ceremony on Wednesday which sees soldiers in scarlet tunics and bearskin hats parade with an army band through the town of Windsor before heading into the castle.

The ceremony is hugely popular with tourists with more than 1.3 million people visiting the castle every year. Police said the new barriers in Windsor would be in addition to usual road closures.

“While there is no intelligence to indicate a specific threat to Windsor, recent events in Westminster clearly highlight the need for extra security measures to be introduced,” said Assistant Chief Constable Dave Hardcastle of Thames Valley Police.

“The force believes that it is proportionate and necessary to put in place extra security measures to further protect and support the public and the Guard Change.”

Last Wednesday, Khalid Masood, 52, killed three and injured about 50 people after driving a car into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge before fatally stabbing a policeman in the grounds of parliament before he was shot dead.

Detectives said they believe he was acting alone.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Stephen Addison)

Middle-aged London attacker was criminal who wasn’t seen as threat

Flowers are placed at the scene of an attack on Westminster Bridge, in London, Britain March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Darren Staples

By Michael Holden

BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) – Before he killed at least four people in Britain’s deadliest attack since the 2005 London bombings, Khalid Masood was considered by intelligence officers to be a criminal who posed little serious threat.

A British-born convert to Islam, Masood had shown up on the periphery of previous terrorism investigations that brought him to the attention of Britain’s MI5 spy agency.

But the 52-year-old was not under investigation when he sped across Westminster Bridge on Wednesday, plowing down pedestrians with a hired car before running into the parliamentary grounds and fatally stabbing an unarmed policeman.

He was shot dead by police.

Although some of those he was involved with included people suspected of being keen to travel to join jihadi groups overseas, Masood “himself never did so”, said a U.S. government source, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Britain’s senior counter-terrorism police officer, Mark Rowley, told reporters: “Our investigation focuses on understanding his motivation, his operation and his associates.”

He added: “Whilst there is still no evidence of further threats, you’ll understand our determination is to find out if either he acted totally alone, inspired perhaps by terrorist propaganda, or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him.”

Islamic State claimed responsibility for Masood’s attack, although it was unclear what links – if any – he had with the militant group. Police said there had been no prior intelligence about his intent to mount an attack.

“An act of terrorism tried to silence our democracy,” Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament. “He took out his rage indiscriminately.”

BRITISH-BORN KILLER

Born Adrian Russell Ajao in Kent to the southeast of London on Christmas Day in 1964, he moved though several addresses in England, although he was known to have lived recently in Birmingham in central England.

The Daily Mail newspaper said he was brought up by his single mother in the town of Rye on England’s south coast, later converting to Islam and changing his name. Other media reports said he was a married father of three and a former English teacher who was into bodybuilding.

One soccer team photograph of Masood, taken at school in southern England, showed the future attacker smiling.

Little detail has been given by the British police about the man and what might have led him to carry out Wednesday’s attack, the deadliest in Britain since the London suicide bombings of 2005 by four young British Islamists, which killed 52.

Known by a number of aliases, he racked up a string of convictions, but none for terrorism-related offences. His occupation was unclear.

It was as long ago as November 1983 that he first came to the attention of authorities when he was found guilty of causing criminal damage. His last conviction came 14 years ago in December 2003 for possession of a knife.

He may have taught in Saudi Arabia for four years from 2005 but there was no confirmation of this. A spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry referred Reuters questions to the British authorities.

“Our working assumption is that he was inspired by international terrorism,” said Rowley.

But Masood’s age does not fit the profile of militant attackers, who are typically younger than 30, according to counter-terrorism officers.

Rowley said detectives were questioning nine people in custody, having made two further “significant” arrests in central and northwest England.

Iwona Romek, a former neighbor from Birmingham, told reporters: “When I saw the pictures on TV and in the papers of the man who carried out the attack, I recognized him as the man who used to live next door.

“He had a young child, who I’d think was about 5 or 6 years old. There was a woman living there with him, an Asian woman. He seemed to be quite nice, he would be taking care of his garden and the weeds.”

In December, she said, he suddenly moved out.

BIRMINGHAM CONNECTION

Birmingham has been one of the hotbeds for British Islamists. According to a study by the Henry Jackson think tank earlier this month, 39 of 269 people convicted in Britain of terrorism offences from 1998 to 2015 came from the city.

Among those plots was one to kidnap and behead a British soldier. In December, two men were found guilty of planning to give 3,000 pounds ($3,750) to Brussels bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini – widely known as “the man in the hat”.

There are over 213,000 Muslims in Birmingham, making up over a fifth of the population, according to the 2011 census, and there has been growing concern about divisions in the diverse city.

“It has been disturbing today to learn of the apparent Birmingham connection to this atrocity,” said the Birmingham Faith Leaders Group, made up of representatives of major religions from the city. “We implore people to recognize that such actions are taken by individuals, not by whole communities.”

The car Masood used in Wednesday’s attack had been hired in Birmingham from rental firm Enterprise, suggesting he still had connections to the area.

Since the attack, police have raided a number of addresses across the city, arresting five men and two women on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts.

Masood may have rented an apartment close to the Edgbaston area of the city, not far from the Enterprise offices, and that was one of the properties raided by armed officers.

On the eve of the attack that May cast as an assault on democracy, Masood spent his last night in a budget hotel in Brighton on the south coast, where he ate a takeaway kebab, the Sun newspaper said.

Michael Petersen, a guest who saw him at the hotel reception, said Masood appeared polite and had done nothing to arouse suspicion.

“Nothing in his demeanor or his looks would have given me any thoughts that would make me think he was anything but normal,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington and Reem Shamseddine in Riyadh; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Trevelyan)

‘What a mad world’ says minister who tried to save wounded officer in parliament

MP Tobias Ellwood listens to speeches in Parliament the morning after an attack in Westminster, London Britain, March 23, 2017. Parliament TV/Handout via REUTERS

LONDON (Reuters) – The government minister who tried to resuscitate a police officer stabbed to death in the attack on Britain’s parliament described the incident on Thursday, saying “what a mad world.”

Tobias Ellwood, 50, a junior minister in the foreign office, walked away from the scene with blood on his face and hands.

Ellwood’s brief includes counter-terrorism. Before entering politics he served in Northern Ireland, Kuwait, Bosnia and other countries during a six-year spell in the British army.

Speaking to Britain’s Times newspaper, he said: “What a mad world — tried to save officer but stabbed too many times.”

“I was on the scene and as soon as I realized what was going on I headed toward it,” he said. “I tried to stem the flow of blood and give mouth-to-mouth while waiting for the medics to arrive but I think he had lost too much blood. He had multiple wounds, under the arm and in the back.”

Ellwood, whose brother was killed in a bomb attack in Bali in 2002, was hailed as a hero by fellow lawmakers, and many of Britain’s tabloid newspapers featured images of him knelt over the body of the victim just inside the gates of parliament.

A Reuters witness saw him walk away from the body, which was later covered in blankets, before comforting others in the area.

(Reporting by William James; editing by Stephen Addison)

UK parliament attacker British-born, had been investigated over extremism concerns

Police work at Carriage Gate outside the Houses of Parliament. REUTERS/Neil Hall

By Elizabeth Piper and William James

LONDON (Reuters) – 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.

The Islamic State 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 Islamist ideology.

About 40 people were injured and 29 remain in hospital, seven in critical condition, after the incident which resembled Islamic State-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. http://tmsnrt.rs/2napbkD

“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, adding that his identity would be revealed when the investigation allowed.

The mayhem in London took 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 Nice waterfront for which Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Islamic State, which is being driven from large areas of Iraq and Syria by local forces supported by a U.S.-led military coalition, said it was responsible for the London attack.

“The perpetrator of the attacks…is an Islamic State soldier and he carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of the coalition,” a statement on its Amaq agency said.

Westminster Bridge and the area just around parliament were still cordoned off on Thursday morning and a line of forensic investigators in light blue overalls were on their hands and knees, examining the scene where the attacker was shot.

The dead were two members of the public, the stabbed policeman and the attacker.

“My thoughts, prayers, and deepest sympathy are with all those who have been affected by yesterday’s awful violence,” Queen Elizabeth said in a message.

Britain’s plan to trigger the formal process of exiting the EU on March 29 will not be delayed due to the attack, May’s spokesman said.

Flowers are left outside New Scotland Yard the morning after an attack in London, Britain, March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

“TOOK OUT HIS RAGE”

It was the worst such attack in Britain since 2005, when 52 people were killed by Islamist suicide bombers on London’s public transport system. Police had given the death toll as five but revised it down to four on Thursday.

The casualties included 12 Britons, three French children, two Romanians, four South Koreans, one German, one Pole, one Chinese, one American and two Greeks, May said.

“We meet here, in the oldest of all parliaments, because we know that democracy and the values it entails will always prevail,” she said.

“A terrorist came to the place where people of all nationalities and cultures gather what it means to be free and he took out his rage indiscriminately against innocent men, women and children,” said May.

A minute’s silence was held in parliament and in front of police headquarters at New Scotland Yard at 0933 GMT, in honor of the victims — 933 was the shoulder number on the uniform of Keith Palmer, the policeman who was stabbed to death.

May was in parliament on Wednesday, a short distance away from the spot where the attacker was shot. She was swiftly whisked away as the chaos erupted, according to lawmaker Andrew Bridgen, who was nearby at the time.

A government minister was widely praised for trying to resuscitate Palmer, walking away from the scene with blood on his hands and face.

A crowdfunding page hastily set up to raise money for Palmer’s family attracted close to 20,000 pounds ($25,000)within three hours.

Some have been shocked that the attacker was able to cause such mayhem in the heart of the capital equipped with nothing more sophisticated than a hired car and a knife.

“The police and agencies that we rely on for our security have forestalled a large number of these attacks in recent years, over a dozen last year,” said defense minister Michael Fallon.

“This kind of attack, this lone-wolf attack, using things from daily life, a vehicle, a knife, are much more difficult to forestall,” he told the BBC.

Police officers salute during a minute's silence outside New Scotland Yard. REUTERS/Neil Hall

Police officers salute during a minute’s silence outside New Scotland Yard. REUTERS/Neil Hall

SOLIDARITY

Three French high-school students aged 15 or 16, who were on a school trip to London with fellow students from Brittany, were among the injured.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who traveled to London to bring a message of solidarity, met some of the other students who were on the school trip and their families at a hotel near the hospital where the injured were being treated.

He told reporters the lives of the three youngsters were not in danger. Ayrault later attended the session in parliament where May spoke. France has been hit by repeated deadly Islamist attacks over the past two years.

A vigil was planned in London’s Trafalgar Square at 6 P.M.

Anti-immigration groups were quick to make links between immigration and the attack, though it was subsequently revealed the attacker was British-born.

Leave.EU, a group that has campaigned for immigration to be severely restrained as part of Britain’s exit from the European Union, accused mainstream politicians of facilitating acts of terror by failing to secure borders.

In France, far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen also drew a link, saying that events in London highlighted the importance of protecting national borders and stepping up security measures.

(Additional reporting by Costas Pitas, Kate Holton, Estelle Shirbon and Elisabeth O’Leary, writing by Estelle Shirbon, editing by Ralph Boulton)