|
Crash outside UK Parliament treated as terror attack
[NYPOST] A man plowed a car into security barriers outside the Houses of Parliament in London on Tuesday morning, injuring at least three people before being juggedDrop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! on suspicion of terrorism, officials said. The man was driving a Ford Fiesta on the wrong side of the road at up to 50 mph when it mounted the sidewalk and struck a group of pedestrians and cyclists before slamming into the barriers, the Telegraph reported. The suspect, who is in his 20s, was captured about 7:30 a.m. local time and was being held on suspicion of terrorist offenses, according to Scotland Yard. No one else was in the car and authorities said no weapons had been recovered from the scene. Two people were taken to local hospitals and another was treated at the scene. One woman remained hospitalized Tuesday afternoon, but her injuries weren’t believed to be life-threatening, officials said. "Given that this appears to be a deliberate act, the method and this being an iconic site, we are treating it as a terrorist incident and the investigation is being led by officers from the Counter Terrorism Command," said Assistant Police Commissioner Neil Basu. "Our priority is to formally identify the suspect and establish his motivations if we can. He is not currently cooperating," he added. The BBC, citing unnamed sources, said the suspect is from the Birmingham area in central England and, while not known to the MI5 domestic spy agency or Britannia’s counter-terrorism network, was known to police. "At this early stage of the investigation, no other suspects at the scene have been identified or reported to police," Basu said, according to Rooters. ‘Sudanese immigrant terror attacker’ who drove around London for hours before smashing his car into cyclists outside Parliament leaving 15 hurt [DailyMail]
Police raid addresses in Nottingham and Birmingham over Westminster 'terror attack': British suspect who WAS known to officers but not MI5 'used a Ford Fiesta bought two months ago to mow down 15 cyclists' [DailyMail] The suspect is believed to have lived above an internet café in Sparkhill, Birmingham, reports Sky News. Police have been searching the flat for several hours today. Officers from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command are searching another address in Birmingham, where the suspect is said to be known to police, and a flat in the Radford area of Nottingham over the attack, but have not arrested anyone else. Neighbours of the house searched in Nottingham have said the flat is home to six Sudanese people, and a security source told HuffPost that the suspect is a British citizen of a Sudanese origin. There has been no suggestion that the suspect lived in the address searched in Nottingham, nor has it been established what its connection to the crime was. Although Scotland Yard have been treating the incident as a terrorist attack, Home Secretary Sajid Javid has said 'we must keep an open mind'. Britain faces 700 live terror probes: After new attack on Westminster, officials reveal the scale of the threat to the UK
Salih Khater, 29, was also thrown off his university accountancy course in May after failing his first year and lost his father and brother in the months before he used his Ford Fiesta to plough into crowds during yesterday's rush hour. MailOnline understands that Khater had recently been told by the Home Office he was being probed over possible irregularities in his successful application to become a British citizen. There could be a number of reasons for this apparent dispute, one could be that immigration officials may have discovered discrepancies in his original application to live in the UK such as his age or documents provided as evidence. Khater studied electrical engineering at the Sudan University of Science and Technology and grew up in the rural town of Wad Madani, around 150 miles south-east of Khartoum, Sudan, where his mother and father farmed millet, and came to the UK around five years ago, possibly as an asylum seeker. He moved to Britain without his family. He settled in Birmingham where he was described as a quiet loner who loved Celine Dion, smoking shisha and whiling away time at an internet cafe below his old flat in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham. Until May he was studying accountancy at Coventry University but had his place 'terminated' after failing the first year, while friends said his poor English meant he couldn't complete a pharmacy course 12 months earlier. Police are today searching his tenth floor council flat just ten minutes from the former home of Khalid Masood, whose murderous rampage 17 months ago appears to have inspired Khater's own carborne attack yesterday. Searches of his old flat and a Nottingham house linked to his car have been completed. Police are analysing PC from internet cafe he used on the day before launching attack. One man, who lived near him at the Brinklow tower block told MailOnline: 'He was a Muslim and would go to the mosque but I never once heard him say anything about hating the west. 'He was just a normal guy and we would sit and have a laugh and a drink. In all the time I have known him he never seemed angry or upset about what was going on.' Khater has so far refused to cooperate with counter terror police. Another friend said Khater had seemed unhappy in recent weeks. 'He was always on his mobile phone and would use the charger in the shop al the time. He was never off the phone and for the last couple of months he was unhappy. I do not know what was affecting him, but he was not himself.' Posted by: Fred 2018-08-15 |
|
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=520716 |