Cairo: Islamic State was responsible for an attack outside the UK Parliament which left four people dead, the group’s Amaq news agency said on Thursday.
“The perpetrator of the attacks yesterday in front of the British parliament in London is an Islamic State soldier and he carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of the coalition,” the Amaq statement said.
Five people were killed and about 40 injured in London on Wednesday after a car ploughed into pedestrians at Westminster Bridge and a suspected Islamist-inspired attacker stabbed a policeman close to the UK Parliament.
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Islamic State, which has controlled parts of Iraq and Syria in recent years, has lost territory this year to local forces in those countries supported by a US-led military coalition.
Earlier, UK Prime Minister Theresa May had said the man who launched Wednesday’s attack at parliament was born in Britain and known to the intelligence services
“What I can confirm is that the man was British-born and that some years ago he was once investigated by MI5 (UK’s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency) in relation to concerns about violent extremism,” she told lawmakers.
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“He was a peripheral figure,” she added. “The case is historic, he was not part of the current intelligence picture.” She said there had been no prior intelligence of his intent nor of the plot.
Theresa May also said that terrorism would not prevail as she rallied the country to carry on with its everyday business and stick to British values in response to an attack on parliament.
“At this time it is so important that we show that it is our values that will prevail, that the terrorists will not win, that we will go about our lives showing that unity of purpose and the values that we share as one nation going forward and ensuring that the terrorists will be defeated,” she told parliament. Reuters
