{"id":11488,"date":"2018-08-14T12:32:09","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T12:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11488"},"modified":"2018-08-14T12:32:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T12:32:09","slug":"car-crash-outside-uks-parliament-treated-as-terrorist-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11488","title":{"rendered":"Car crash outside UK’s parliament treated as terrorist attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A man has been arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences after he crashed his car into security barriers outside the UK’s Houses of Parliament.<\/p>\n

London’s Ambulance Service said in a statement it had taken two people to hospital\u00a0on Tuesday after a silver Ford Fiesta hit a group of cyclists and pedestrians,\u00a0metres from where five pedestrians were killed in an attack last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to CCTV footage obtained by the BBC, the car mounted the pavement, drove against traffic, and crashed into a barrier outside parliament building.<\/p>\n

Images circulating on social media showed police arresting the man, dressed in jeans and a black puffer jacket, after officers swarmed on his vehicle and removed him at gunpoint.<\/p>\n

“At this stage, we are treating this as a terrorist incident,” Neil Basu<\/span>, the\u00a0<\/span>Metropolitan police’s<\/span>\u00a0deputy assistant commissioner said,\u00a0<\/span>adding none of the injuries were believed to be life-threatening.<\/p>\n

“The man is in his late 20s, has been taken to a south London police station and remains in custody. There is no intelligence at this time of further danger to Londoners or the rest of the UK connected to this incident.<\/p>\n

“Our priority now is to formally establish the identity of the suspect and establish his motivation if we can. He is not currently cooperating,” said Basu.<\/p>\n

Parliament was immediately placed on lockdown and surrounding streets in the central London district were cordoned off to the public.<\/p>\n

Eyewitness Ewalina Ochab told the Press Association the incident “looked intentional”.<\/p>\n

“I was walking on the other side. I heard some noise and someone screamed.\u00a0<\/span>I turned around and I saw a silver car driving very fast close to the railings, maybe even on the pavement. I think it looked intentional, the car drove at speed and towards the barriers.”<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Theresa May tweeted her “thoughts are with those injured in the incident”.<\/p>\n

US\u00a0President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged tough action against the “animals” behind the apparent attack.<\/p>\n

“Another terrorist attack in London…These animals are crazy and must be dealt with through toughness and strength!” Trump tweeted.<\/p>\n

Euronews\/NBC UK correspondent Vincent McAviney tweeted a video of police officers rushing to the scene.<\/p>\n

\n

Breaking: Big armed police response to car which has cashed into Parliament barriers we are now being moved back pic.twitter.com\/rYAqExq6rn<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Vincent McAviney (@VinnyMcAv) August 14, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee, reporting from Millbank, a few hundred metres from the crash, said while it appeared the car was deliberately driven into the barriers, it wasn’t a successful attack.<\/p>\n

“While the incident has blindsided everybody, it’s very quiet here. Parliament is currently on summer recess, so if it was a deliberate attack, it hasn’t been particularly successful one for the attacker.”<\/p>\n

The crash comes 17 months after Khalid Masood, born as Adrian Russell Elms, drove his vehicle at pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before fatally stabbing a policeman on guard outside parliament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The attack left five people dead and around 50 injured, and only ended when police shot Masood dead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A man has been arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences after he crashed his car into security barriers outside the UK’s Houses of Parliament. London’s Ambulance Service said in a statement it had taken two people to hospital\u00a0on Tuesday after a silver Ford Fiesta hit a group of cyclists and pedestrians,\u00a0metres from where five pedestrians…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}