London terrorist attacker is named as UK-born Khalid Masood

The man who mowed down pedestrians and stabbed a policeman in a deadly terror attack outside the British parliament claimed by the Islamic State was identified by police on Thursday as 52-year-old Khalid Masood.
London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement that Masood was known by a number of aliases.

Three people, including the policeman, were killed in the attack. Some 30 people were injured.

Masood was shot dead by armed officers.

He was born in Kent in southeast England and had been living in the West Midlands, which includes the city of Birmingham where there was an armed police raid overnight in connection with Wednesday’s assault.

Police said Masood had a range of convictions for assault including grievous bodily harm, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences ranging from 1983 to 2003.

However, it said Masood had never been convicted of any terrorism offences and that he “was not the subject of any investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack”.

Earlier Thursday, Prime Minister Theresa May said the man behind the attack had once been investigated by the intelligence service MI5 in relation to concerns about violent extremism.

Prior to the identification of Masood as the attacker, the IS-linked Aamaq news agency said earlier Thursday that the person who carried out the attack in front of the British parliament in London was a soldier of the Islamic State. It added that the person carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of the coalition.

IS has called on its supporters to carry out attacks against citizens of the US-led coalition that has been targeting the group since 2014. The group, responsible for numerous bloody attacks around the globe, has previously claimed certain attacks in a show of opportunism.

US President Donald Trump offered his prayers and condolences to the family and friends of the American killed in the attack.

Trump tweeted Thursday that Kurt Cochran was a great American, adding, my prayers and condolences are with his family and friends.

Cochran and his wife, Melissa, were on the last day of a special European trip celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary.

Source: /Times of Israel