London terror attack: ISIS claims responsibility; British police names assailant as British-born Khalid Masood

Four people, including the attacker and a police officer had died in UK

Pic courtesy: Reuters

London: The Islamic State on Thursday claimed responsibility for a brazen terror attack on the UK Parliament.

ISIS on its propaganda news agency 'Amaq' claimed responsibility, saying a "soldier of the caliphate" carried out the attack on the British Parliament.

"The operation was carried out in response to calls to target coalition countries," it said in a statement, as per PTI.

On the other hand, the British police today named the assailant as Khalid Masood, saying he had a string of criminal convictions but none for terrorism-related offences.

Masood, 52, was born in Kent to the southeast of London and had been most recently living in central England, London police said.

Known by a number of other aliases, he had not been convicted previously for any terrorism offences, they added.

"Masood was not the subject of any current investigations and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack," they said in a statement, as per Reuters.

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."

Police said his first conviction was in November 1983 for criminal damage and his last was in December 2003 for possession of a knife

Four people, including the attacker and a police officer, PC Keith Palmer who was on guard at Parliament, had died in yesterday`s incident.

"Four people have died. That includes the police officer who was protecting parliament and one man we believe to be the attacker who was shot by a police firearms officer," Britain`s top counter-terrorism officer Mark Rowley had told reporters.

Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Theresa May, giving details known about the attack today said that the attacker had driven his vehicle at speed into innocent pedestrians who were crossing Westminster Bridge, killing two people and injuring around 40 more.

The attacker then left the vehicle and approached a police officer at Carriage Gates of Parliament, attacking him with a large knife, before he was shot dead by an officer.

In a related development, the car which an attacker used had been rented from Birmingham in central England, hire firm Enterprise said today.

"We can confirm that the car used in the tragic attack in London yesterday afternoon was one of ours," said a spokesman for Enterprise Holdings, adding it had been hired from its Spring Hill branch in Birmingham.

"An employee identified the vehicle after seeing the licence plate in an image online. We ran another check to verify, and immediately contacted the authorities. We are co-operating fully with the authorities and will provide any assistance that we can to the investigation," they said.

(With Agency inputs)