LONDON – The lone attacker who carried out a deadly rampage in central London was a British-born man once investigated for possible extremist links, but was “not part of the current intelligence picture,” Britain’s prime minister said Thursday.

The remarks by Theresa May did not name the suspect who left three people dead – two mowed down by his SUV on the Westminster Bridge and a police officer stabbed outside Parliament – before he was fatally shot.

But May offered new details about past scrutiny by authorities, who described Wednesday’s attacks as “inspired by international terrorism” but likely waged by the suspect alone.

Shortly after May spoke, the Islamic State-linked news site Amaq carried a statement calling the attacker a “soldier” of the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate. British authorities have announced no links between the suspect and the Islamic State, but the militant group has often asserted ties to various attacks around the world.

Across the English Channel in Antwerp, Belgium, authorities were placed on high alert after a driver tried enter a pedestrian zone with a car carrying weapons including a gun.

Belgian police said the car, with French license plates, sped onto the street and people were forced to jump out of the way. Belgian federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sijpt identified the suspect as a French citizen, Mohamed R., 39, and said a long knife, a gun and a container containing an as-yet-unidentified substance was found in the trunk. Further details were not immediately available, but the case was referred to Belgian federal prosecutors – whose cases include militant attacks or threats.

In a statement to the House of Commons, May said that the assailant was born in Britain and was once investigated by security services “in relations to concerns about violent extremism.”

“He was a peripheral figure,” she added. “The case was historic. He was not part of the current intelligence picture. There was no prior intelligence of his intent or of the plot. Intensive investigations continue.”

Meanwhile, police held at least eight people after sweeps in London and Birmingham linked to the investigation.

In London, Mark Rowley, the acting deputy police commissioner, said: “It is still our belief, which continues to be borne out by our investigation, that this attacker acted alone and was inspired by international terrorism.”

He also said that 29 people were being treated in hospital, with seven in critical condition.

“At this stage, we have no specific information about further threats to the public,” he said.

A minute’s silence was observed in Parliament, Scotland Yard and London’s City Hall to honor the lives lost in the attack at 9:33 a.m., in honor of slain police officer Keith Palmer’s shoulder number 933 on his uniform.

Queen Elizabeth II, who was due to open the new Scotland Yard building Thursday but postponed the ceremony, said that her “thoughts, prayers, and deepest sympathy are with all those who have been affected by yesterday’s awful violence.”

The attack – which unfolded around some of London’s most famous landmarks – carried hallmarks of past strikes in Nice, France, and Berlin where vehicles were used as tools of terrorism.

The assailant first plowed an SUV through terrified pedestrians along the bridge, killing at least two people and injuring others from a range of nationalities, including 12 Britons, three French schoolchildren, two Romanians, four South Koreans, two Greeks, one German, one Pole, one Irish, one Chinese, one Italian, and one American.

One Romanian woman who was walking along Westminster Bridge plunged into the Thames, but was pulled alive from the river.

The attacker then rammed the vehicle into the fence encircling Parliament and charged with a knife at officers stationed at the iron gates leading to the Parliament grounds, killing one and injuring three, before he was shot and killed by police.

“Unfortunately, we’re seeing an increasing number of terrorist attacks in the West which use unsophisticated methods,” said Shiraz Maher, deputy director of International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London.

“These are plots that are very easy to construct, require little money, planning, and expertise, but which are nonetheless highly effective in causing death and destruction,” he added.

Amid the attack probe, tributes also poured in for the officer fatally stabbed, Keith Palmer, a 48-year-old husband and father who was unarmed at the time of the attack.

“He was a strong, professional public servant,” said a parliament member, James Cleverly, in emotional speech in Parliament.

Lawmakers also acknowledged Tobias Ellwood, a senior official at Foreign Office Minister who tried in vain to save Palmer’s life.

Michael Fallon, Britain’s defense secretary, said that the security arrangements at Parliament, which has a mix of armed and unarmed officers, would now be reviewed. But he stressed that “Parliament cannot be hermetically sealed.”

The incident was splashed onto the front pages of British newspapers on Thursday with the Times of London carrying the headline “Assault on Westminster” and the Daily Mirror “Attack on Democracy.”

Despite the massive police presence in the area, there were signs that life was returning to normal on Thursday.

“We are not afraid,” May said during her defiant speech to Parliament, which was busier than normal.

The attack occurred on Parliament’s busiest day of the week, when the prime minister appears for her weekly questions session and the House of Commons is packed with visitors.

The Palace of Westminster, the ancient seat of the British Parliament, is surrounded by heavy security, with high walls, armed officers and metal detectors. But just outside the compound are busy roads packed with cars and pedestrians.

It was apparently carried out by a lone assailant who used easily available weapons to attack and kill people in a busy public setting.

British security officials have taken pride in their record of disrupting such attacks even as assailants in continental Europe have slipped through. On Thursday, May said that since June 2013, police and intelligence services have disrupted 13 terrorist plots in Britain.

But they have also acknowledged that their track record would not stay pristine, and that an attack was inevitable. When it happened, it was shocking nonetheless. Cellphones captured scenes of carnage amid some of London’s most renowned landmarks.

The target – Westminster – was heavily guarded. But the weapons of choice – an SUV and a knife – made the attack one of the most difficult kinds to prevent, requiring the assailant neither to acquire illegal weapons nor to plot with other conspirators.

Britain has been on high alert for terrorist attacks for several years. But until Wednesday, the country had been spared the sort of mass-casualty attacks that have afflicted France, Belgium and Germany since 2015.

A year ago to the day, attackers carried out three coordinated suicide bombings in Belgium, killing 32 civilians and injuring more than 300 others in two blasts at Brussels Airport and one at a metro station in the Belgian capital. The Islamic State asserted responsibility for the attacks, in which three perpetrators were also killed.

(c) 2017, The Washington Post

Facebook Comments