DAESH claims London attack
Belgium raises security in Antwerp after high-speed car
LONDON, March 23, (Agencies): The attacker who killed three people near parliament in London before being shot dead was named on Thursday as a 52-year-old British-born man, Khalid Masood, who was once investigated by MI5 intelligence officers over concerns about violent extremism.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued by its Amaq news agency, but did not name Masood and gave no details. It was not clear whether the attacker was directly connected to the jihadist group.
Police said Masood was born in the county of Kent in southeast England and was most recently living in the West Midlands region of central England.
“Masood was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
“However, he was known to police and has a range of previous convictions for assaults, including GBH (grievous bodily harm), possession of offensive weapons and public order offences.” Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament the attacker had once been investigated by the MI5 intelligence agency over concerns about violent extremism, but was a peripheral figure.
Police said Masood had never been convicted of a terrorism offence. His first conviction was in 1983 for criminal damage and his last one was in December 2003 for possession of a knife.
During five minutes of mayhem in the heart of London on Wednesday, Masood sped across Westminster Bridge in a car, ploughing into pedestrians. He then ran through the gates of the nearby parliament building and fatally stabbed an unarmed policeman before being shot dead.
Police arrested eight people at six locations in London and Birmingham in the investigation into the attack, which May said was inspired by a warped Islamist ideology.
The Enterprise rental car company said the vehicle used in the attack had been rented from its Spring Hill branch in Birmingham, which is located in the West Midlands.
About 40 people were injured in the attack, of whom
ABOARD THE USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH, March 23, (AP): The crowded skies over Islamic State-held territory have complicated US-led airstrikes targeting the extremists, though military planners are working to keep fliers safe, an American pilot involved in the bombing campaign has told The Associated Press.
Lt Cmdr William Vuillet also described the efforts American forces use to try to minimize civilian casualties from strikes on major cities like Mosul, where allied forces are trying to sweep the remaining militants out of the western half of Iraq’s second-largest city.
Vuillet said he believes coalition forces will “eradicate” the extremist group responsible for mass killings, beheadings and other atrocities targeting civilians across the Middle East and around the world.
It “is really above and beyond what we saw in the past from al-Qaeda,” he said. “It is really a fight of good and evil.”
Vuillet, whose hometown is Athens, Georgia, though he grew up in Paris, spoke to the AP near his F-18 fighter jet in one of the hangars onboard the USS George H.W. Bush. The nuclearpowered, Nimitz-class aircraft carrier arrived in the Persian Gulf this week after leaving its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia.
The carrier launched airstrikes targeting the Islamic State group in February as it transited through the Mediterranean Sea. It will resume those strikes in the coming days during its tour of the Gulf, with many coming from Vuillet’s Strike Fighter Squadron 37, which is usually based at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
He and other coalition pilots enter an increasingly busy airspace when flying missions against the extremists, especially in Syria. Russian and Syrian aircraft regularly strike insurgents battling to overthrow President Bashar Assad, and Israel carries out occasional strikes aimed at preventing advanced weaponry from falling into the hands of the Lebanese Hezbollah group.
Vuillet, 33, who flies under the call sign “Vieter,” credited US air traffic controllers at the al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar with protecting American pilots. Military officials there also remain in touch with Russian forces and others to ensure nothing goes wrong.
“There’s some de-confliction in terms of timing, de-confliction with altitude,” he said. “There’s also a command-and-control structure that’s in place at all times that we can remain in communication with that provides realtime warning in terms of other aircraft that may be in the air.”
The lieutenant commander previously flew combat missions over Afghanistan, but said the Islamic State fight represented a far different challenge. He said the use of drones has resulted in several close calls for American pilots. “With the remotely piloted aircraft, obviously there’s no crew on board, so they don’t have the same visual lookout that we do,” Vuillet said. “So it happens every once in a while that we have passes with those.”
Meanwhile, American personnel remain concerned with limiting civilian casualties in their strikes. Airwars, a London-based group that tracks civilian deaths from airstrikes targeting IS in Iraq and Syria, estimates the over 19,000 strikes conducted by the coalition have killed more than 2,700 civilians.