Tag: Security operatives

Westminster police yesterday bundled British Prime Minister (PM) Mrs. Theresa May into a car and rushed her away from Parliament as terror attack unfolded.

Mrs. May was seen being bundled by plain-clothe officers into the back seat of her silver Jaguar at 2.30pm and driven out of Parliament grounds at high speed away from Downing Street.

Dozens of Members of Parliament (MPs) were locked inside the Commons ‘for their own safety’, as armed policemen went through Parliament floor by floor’ and ‘room by room’, looking for other assailants.

The PM was rushed out of the Parliament as it came under terrorist attack by a man wielding two seven-inch knives after murdering a police officer and three pedestrians.

Mrs. May, who was in the voting lobby by the Commons, was surrounded by armed guards at around 2.45pm.

The uninjured PM, who had recently finished PMQs, was driven out of the Palace of Westminster at high speed off the estate and safely inside Downing Street.

She was expected to chair a meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra Committee last night.

MailOnline political editor James Tapsfield described hearing the ‘bang’ of the car smashing into the fence after its Westminster Bridge rampage and then the gunfire that followed when the terrorist was shot dead below his office.

He said: “We were in the MailOnline office overlooking New Palace Yard when the attack started. The first sign we had that something was wrong was a loud bang. It sounded like a bomb, but I now realise it must have been the car smashing into the perimeter fence around parliament.

“Some people ran in through the gates, past the police. I didn’t see the policeman being stabbed, but then spotted the man in black. He made it a few yards inside the grounds before being challenged by two men with guns and then shots – I think three of them – rang out.

“Police and staff poured on to the scene very quickly and started trying to resuscitate the attacker. They took the attacker away in an ambulance, but the other person – we think was the officer – was covered with a sheet.”

Both men were later confirmed dead.

In the aftermath of the attack, hundreds of people inside the Parliament were warned to stay away from any windows before being evacuated.

Armed police from the Metropolitan’s elite terror squad combed the estate to ensure it was secure keeping people in the 900-year-old Westminster Hall.

Three people and a terrorist are dead after the attacker brought carnage to central London today, mowing down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and hacking at police with knives in the grounds of the Houses of Parliament.

At least 20 people were hit on the crowded bridge when a 4×4 drove along the pavement, knocking down pedestrians before crashing into a fence below Big Ben.

The intruder, described by a witness as ‘middle-aged and Asian’, then managed to break into the grounds of the Parliament where he fatally stabbed a police officer with two knives.

The policeman died at the scene. The attacker, who was shot by armed officers, died after he was taken to the nearby St Thomas’ Hospital.

Scotland Yard said the attack, which came a year to the day after the terrorist atrocities in Brussels, is being treated ‘as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise’.

After one week of keeping vigil at the scenes of the recent bomb blast in Kuje and Nyanya in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja that killed several people and left others injured, life has returned in the two areas with residents going about their daily business activities.

Security operatives, who have been keeping vigil at the bomb blast scenes, have left after being stationed at the spots for one week in order to ensuring peace around the area.

When our correspondent visited the scenes in Kuje, it was discovered that motorists have been going through the area, but with caution and trepidation.

The Nation gathered that FCT Permanent Secretary, John Chukwu, had a few days ago, summoned an emergency security meeting to brainstorm on the multiple bomb attacks to take proactive measures against future security breach in the city.

Chukwu, it was gathered, has also ordered for increased surveillance in and around the 8,000 square kilometers of the FCT in order to nip in the bud any plan by insurgents to cause havoc in the city.

In a statement issued on his behalf by the ministry’s Deputy Director/Chief Press Secretary, Muhammad Sule, the Permanent Secretary said: “Such intensified surveillance all over the place would ensure that we are not taken unawares, because the security of lives and property remains on the front burner for the government.”

While pledging the support of the FCT Administration for security agencies to ease their operations, Chukwu further directed the Area Council Chairmen to resuscitate and strengthen their security committees, while community leaders must keep tabs on new comers into their domains.

The emergency meeting was attended by all the heads of military formation in the FCT, including the Commissioner of Police, Director, Department of State Security (DSS), Commandant of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDS), representatives of Customs, Immigration and Prisons, amongst others.