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WORLD NEWSSaturday 29 April 2017

UK police shoot 1, arrest 6 others in counterterror raids

Police officers man the cordoned off area in London’s Harlesden Road Friday, April 28, 2017, after surround the house. Basu said the Willesden
British counter-terror police have shot a woman and arrested several people in raids in London Neighbor Maxine McKen- raid disrupted an ongoing
and southeastern England. The injured suspect has been hospitalized in serious condition after the zie said she saw “a lot of plot, but did not elaborate.
raid in northwest London. frenetic police activity” In both the Willesden and
and a woman being tak- Parliament incidents, “we
(Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP) en out of the house on a have contained the threat
stretcher. that they posed,” Basu
GREGORY KATZ Six suspects were arrested into the house in the Willes- “She was sitting upright said. Britain’s official threat
JILL LAWLESS on terrorism-related charg- den area of northwest and had oxygen on — I from international terrorism
Associated Press es, police said. The injured London, which had been couldn’t tell if she was con- stands at the second-high-
LONDON (AP) — British po- woman, who is in her 20s, under observation as part scious or unconscious,” est level, “severe,” mean-
lice said Friday they had was in serious but stable of an anti-terrorism investi- McKenzie said. ing an attack is highly likely.
disrupted an active terror condition in a hospital. gation, Metropolitan Police Police said the raids Counterterrorism police
plot with raids in London The woman, whose name Deputy Assistant Commis- weren’t connected to an say 13 potential attacks
and southeastern England. hasn’t been released, was sioner Neil Basu said. He arrest by counterterrorism have been foiled in the
One woman was shot and under police guard but didn’t give details of how police near Parliament on last four years. Police and
seriously wounded as heav- had not been arrested be- the woman was shot. Thursday afternoon. A man security services say they
ily armed counterterrorism cause of her condition, po- In footage shot by a wit- was detained near the face a challenge monitor-
officers stormed a house in lice said. ness, what sounds like sev- Houses Parliament and the ing hundreds of people of
a residential London street. Armed officers fired CS gas eral shots ring out as police prime minister’s office in interest, including Britons
Downing Street while alleg- who went to join IS mili-
edly carrying large knives tants in Iraq and Syria and
in a backpack. Police said have returned. Basu, Brit-
the 27-year-old had been ain’s senior coordinator for
under surveillance. A se- counterterrorism policing,
curity official, who spoke said there had been “in-
on condition of anonymity creased activity to com-
because he wasn’t autho- bat terrorism over the last
rized to speak about the two years,” with police
investigation, named him “making arrests on a near-
as Khalid Mohamed Omar daily basis.”
Ali. British media said he In 2016, British police ar-
grew up in London. He was rested 260 people on sus-
arrested yards from where picion of terrorism offenses,
an attacker drove an SUV 96 of whom were charged.
into pedestrians on West- In Thursday’s raids, a 20-
minster Bridge on March year old woman and a
22, killing four, before fatal- 16-year-old boy were ar-
ly stabbing a police officer rested at the address
inside Parliament’s gates. where the woman was
shot, as was a 20-year-old
Iraqi officials: Car bomb kills 4 and wounds 8 man nearby. A man and
a woman, both aged 28,
QASSIM ZAHRA killed in the blast. He said smoke as police fired into claimed responsibility for were arrested when they
Associated Press all those killed were police- the air to disperse a small the attack but IS has car- returned to the house later.
BAGHDAD (AP) — A car men and did not offer any crowd. Hospital and police ried out similar attacks tar- A 43-year-old woman in
bomb at a police station information as to the num- officials — who gave the geting Iraqi security forces Kent county, southeast of
in central Baghdad killed ber of injured. death toll of four — spoke in the past. Iraqi and coali- London, was also arrested.
four people and wounded The differing accounts on condition of anonymity tion officials have warned Police said the suspects
eight late Friday night, ac- could not be immediately in line with regulations. that as IS loses ground in were being held on suspi-
cording to Iraqi police and reconciled. The attack comes as Iraqi Iraq the group will increas- cion of preparation of ter-
hospital officials. The explosion targeted an forces struggle to push ingly return to its insurgent rorist acts. They were being
Saad Mann, a spokesman entrance to the traffic po- back Islamic State group roots. questioned but had not
for the Interior Ministry and lice station in Baghdad’s militants in the northern In July of last year a massive been charged.
Baghdad Operations Com- Karrada neighborhood. Iraqi city of Mosul, the last truck bombing in the same Ryan O’Donnell, who saw
mand, told the Associated Moments after the attack pocket of significant urban Baghdad neighborhood the Willesden raid, said it
Press the attack was car- the burning shell of a car territory the group holds in killed more than 300 peo- was “a bit shocking” to see
ried out by a suicide bomb- could be seen sending Iraq. ple on a busy street lined “police wearing big gas
er and only three were up a plume of thick black No group immediately with shopping malls. q masks and holding guns
and stuff.” q