U.K. police identify London attacker as Daesh claims responsibility
(The Star Travel)

British police have identified the person responsible for the terror attack near parliament as 52-year-old Khalid Masood.The police say in a statement today that Masood was born in southeastern England and was most recently living in the West Midlands, in central England.Police say Masood, who had a number of aliases, wasn’t the subject of any current investigation and that “there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack.”He had been arrested previously for assault, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences.His first conviction was in November 1983 for criminal damage and his last was in December 2003 for possession of a knife.Daesh claimed responsibility Thursday for an attack by a man who plowed an SUV into pedestrians on a crowded London bridge and then stabbed a police officer to death on the grounds of Britain’s Parliament.The attacker was born in Britain and known to authorities who had once investigated him for links to religious extremism, British Prime Minister Theresa May said Thursday in a sweeping speech in which she also encouraged Britons to go about their lives.Daesh said through its Aamaq News Agency that the attacker was a soldier of the Daesh who “carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of the coalition” of countries fighting Daesh in Syria and Iraq. In addition to the police officer and the attacker, who was shot by police, two people died on Westminster Bridge and at least 30 others were injured, seven critically.British officials did not confirm a link with Daesh, though May did say it would be wrong to describe the attack as “Islamic” extremism.“It is Islamist terrorism,” she said. “It is a perversion of a great faith.”Daesh has been responsible for numerous bloody attacks around the globe and has specifically called for Western followers to carry out this kind of attack in their own ...