London police identify suspect behind UK parliament attack

LONDON: The London Metropolitan police on Thursday identified the suspect believed to be responsible for a terrorist attack which left four people dead near the British parliament. 

Khalid Masood, aged 52, identified as the attacker, was born in Kent and detectives believe he was most recently living in the West Midlands, police said. Masood was also known by a number of aliases.

According to the Met Police, Masood was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack.

However, he was known to police and has a range of previous convictions for assaults, including GBH, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences.

His first conviction was in November 1983 for criminal damage and his last conviction was in December 2003 for possession of a knife. He has not been convicted for any terrorism offences, the police said in a press statement.

Masood was a religious person, fond on body building, and had worked as an English teacher for some time.

British MP Khalid Mehmood confirmed Geo News that the suspect does not have Pakistani background.

Reuters adds: Prime Minister Theresa May said the attacker was once investigated by MI5 intelligence agents over concerns about violent extremism.

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 religious ideology. Forty people were injured and 29 remain in hospital, seven in critical condition.

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

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

It was the worst such attack in Britain since 2005, when 52 people were killed by militant 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.

Daesh claims responsibility 

Daesh was responsible for an attack outside Britain's parliament which left four people dead, the group's Amaq news agency said on Thursday.

"The perpetrator of the attacks yesterday in front of the British parliament in London is a Daesh soldier and he carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of the coalition," the Amaq statement said.

Daesh, which has controlled parts of Iraq and Syria in recent years, has lost territory this year to local forces in those countries supported by a US-led military coalition.