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IED used in London Underground terror attack, says Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer

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Emergency services tend to an injured woman following the IED attack. (Gustavo Vieira/via Reuters)
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Social media image: (Twitter/@ASolopovas via Reuters)
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Social media image: (Twitter/@Faizz)
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The suspect package that appears to be made up of an insulated supermarket carrier bag and a white bucket (Twitter)
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The suspect package from a different angle appears to show wires coming from it. (Twitter)
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London Fire Brigade officers walk within a cordon near where the incident happened. (AP)
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Police forensics officers works alongside an underground tube train at a platform at Parsons Green underground tube station in London on Sept. 15, 2017. (AFP)
Updated 15 September 2017
Arab News
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IED used in London Underground terror attack, says Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer

Updated 15 September 2017
Arab News

LONDON: British police said an IED was used in the attack on a London Underground station which injured 22 people in what officers described as a “terrorist incident.”
“We now assess that this was a detonation of an improvised explosive device,” Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer Mark Rowley said on Friday.
London’s police are being supported by Britain’s MI5 intelligence service, he said.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has returned from her constituency to chair an emergency session of the Cobra committee, where she is being briefed on the full details of today's incident.
This will be her first opportunity to receive a full update on the live investigation underway and discuss any precautionary measures that need to be taken in the wake of the attack before making a statement to the British public this afternoon.
According to reports from Sky News, citing security sources, British security services have already identified a suspect involved in the attack, with the help of surveillance footage.
“Security sources say they’ve identified a suspect involved in the Parsons Green bombing, with the aid of CCTV footage,” Mark White, a home affairs correspondent for Sky News, said on Twitter.
The current threat level in the UK from international terrorism is “severe” according to the MI5 website.
But the BBC’s Frank Gardner tweeted that if the UK Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre concludes there is a bomber on the loose the national threat level would likely be raised to “critical.”
Police earlier said they believed someone who was not on the train at the time triggered the device with a timer.
Rowley said there would be an enhanced police presence on public transport services in London and asked the public to “remain vigilant but not be alarmed.”
He did not reveal whether any arrests have yet been made. Met police sources have revealed that the device used did not detonate fully.
Witness accounts 
Earlier witnesses described the scene, saying that commuters fled the area after the blast sent a “fireball” through the station in West London, leaving several injured and sparking panic.
Eye witnesses spoke of people being trampled as panicked passengers ran for the same door.
Some passengers appeared to have suffered facial burns.
One man said he heard a “whoosh” sound and saw the next carriage “engulfed in flames.”
An eyewitness on the train at the time of the explosion told Sky News there were “hundreds and hundreds of people running down a tiny staircase,” and described “blood curdling screaming.”
Ben Geoghegan, a Parsons Green resident who has been evacuated from his home, said “There was panic all over the place. People didn’t know what to do.”
London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan confirmed on Twitter that he was in touch with the emergency services and advised people to check the Metropolitan Police Twitter account for updates and advice.
 

In a statement released on his Twitter account Khan said: “Our city utterly condemns the hideous individuals who attempt to use terror to harm us and destroy our way of life… As London has proven again and again, we will never be intimidated or defeated by terrorism.”
He said he was in “close contact” with the Metropolitan Police, Transport for London (TfL), Government and other emergency services.
And he said he would be attending the “emergency COBRA meeting in Whitehall this afternoon with the Prime Minister.”
“My sincere gratitude goes to all our courageous emergency responders and the TfL staff who were first on the scene… I urge all Londoners to remain calm and vigilant, and to check TfL’s website for travel advice.”
Images apparently from the scene appear to show a charred white bucket inside a carrier bag on the train, although damage to the carriage does not appear to be extensive. 
The device
BBC Security Correspondent Frank Gardner described the device as “relatively small and relatively amateur,” adding that he believed the attacker probably intended to inflict a lot more casualties.
And a former Ministry of Defence counter-terrorism expert said the image “doesn’t look like a high-end explosive from IS,” using an alternative name for Daesh.
 

This tweet appears to show the burning remains of the suspect package.
 

Emergency services were called to the scene at 8:20 a.m. after reports of an explosion on the District Line train. 
London Fire Brigade confirmed that it had a number of appliances at the scene, as well as approximately 50 firefighters.
London Ambulance said paramedics were present.
In a statement London Ambulance Service said:  “Our initial priority is to assess the level and nature of injuries.”
Images posted on Twitter showed a women being attended to by emergency services sitting on a pavement.
Police said they were aware of reports on social media and would release facts regarding the incident once they could be sure of their accuracy.
Trump tweets "unhelpful"
Transport for London said on Twitter that there was no service between Earls Court and Wimbledon on the District Line which runs through Parsons Green.
An official source at the Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed the Kingdom’s “strong condemnation and denunciation” of the attack.
The source added that the Kingdom maintained its solidarity with the UK and its stand against terrorism and extremism.
President Donald Trump took to Twitter later to blast the “loser terrorists” behind the attack.
“Another attack in London by a loser terrorist,” he tweeted.
“These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard. Must be proactive!” he added in what appeared to be criticism of how the British police are handling terrorism on its shores
 

He then added: “Loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner,” without giving details of what that meant.
“The internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off & use better!” he added, also giving no details.
 

It was not immediately clear if the people behind the bomb attack on Friday were indeed previously known to British law enforcement.

But if it were the case, then Trump has apparently revealed the detail before authorities in Britain made the information public themselves.

Trump’s comment was described as “unhelpful speculation” by London’s Metropolitan Police.

Nick Timothy, former chief of staff to British Prime Minister Theresa May also branded the US leader’s tweet “unhelpful.”

“True or not – and I’m sure he doesn’t know – this is so unhelpful from leader of our ally and intelligence partner,” he wrote on Twitter.
Community spirit

Meanwhile in typical British tea-loving form, local residents have been tweeting offers to “put the kettle on” for those caught up in the incident.
 

 

London’s latest attack happened around the same time as a knife-wielding man attacked a soldier in Paris, although no one has yet suggested that the attacks were coordinated.
The soldier, who was part of an anti-terrorism operation known as Sentinelle, rapidly tackled the man and was uninjured. The attacker was taken into custody. 
(Additional reporting by news wires)

Topics: London Daesh terrorism London attacks Donald Trump

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UK business confidence lowest since COVID pandemic, IoD says

Updated 10 sec ago
Reuters
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UK business confidence lowest since COVID pandemic, IoD says

  • The IoD survey took place between Nov. 15 and Nov. 27 and was based on 601 responses, mostly from small businesses
Updated 10 sec ago
Reuters

LONDON: Britain’s Institute of Directors said on Sunday that optimism among its members had fallen to the lowest since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, following tax rises in finance minister Rachel Reeves’ first budget on Oct. 30.
Investment plans and employment intentions were the weakest since May 2020 last month, while a gauge of business leaders’ optimism sank to its lowest since April 2020 at -65, down from -52 in October.
“As businesses continue to absorb the consequences of the Budget for their business plans, confidence has continued to plummet,” IoD Chief Economist Anna Leach said.
“Far from fixing the foundations, the Budget has undermined them, damaging the private sector’s ability to invest in their businesses and their workforces,” she added.
The IoD report adds to a chorus of complaints by businesses since the budget and other signs of an economic slowdown.
Last week Reeves promised the Confederation of British Industry that she would not be “coming back with more borrowing or more taxes” at future budgets.
Reeves announced 40 billion pounds ($51 billion) of tax rises at the budget, including a 25 billion pound increase in employers’ annual social security contributions.
Labour had only pointed to around 8 billion pounds of tax rises before the election and Reeves blamed the extra increases in large part on what she said was an unexpectedly poor fiscal legacy left by the previous Conservative government.
A planned tightening of employment laws was also likely to increase costs for employers, the IoD said.
The IoD survey took place between Nov. 15 and Nov. 27 and was based on 601 responses, mostly from small businesses.

Topics: Institute of Directors Britain UK business

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Iceland votes for a new parliament after political disagreements force an early election

Updated 10 min 42 sec ago
AP
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Iceland votes for a new parliament after political disagreements force an early election

  • Iceland, a nation of about 400,000 people, is proud of its democratic traditions, describing itself as arguably the world’s oldest parliamentary democracy
Updated 10 min 42 sec ago
AP

REYKJAVIK, Iceland: Icelanders voted to elect a new parliament Saturday after disagreements over immigration, energy policy and the economy forced Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson to pull the plug on his coalition government and call an early election.
All polling stations managed to open despite fierce weather in the sub-Arctic nation that left roads in many areas blocked by snow. Ballot-counting began after polls closed at 10 p.m. local time (2200GMT), with results expected early Sunday.
This is Iceland’s sixth general election since the 2008 financial crisis devastated the economy of the North Atlantic island nation and ushered in a new era of political instability.
Opinion polls suggested the country could be in for another upheaval, with support for the three governing parties plunging. Benediktsson, who was named prime minister in April following the resignation of his predecessor, struggled to hold together the unlikely coalition of his conservative Independence Party with the centrist Progressive Party and the Left-Green Movement.
“My expectation is like, something new (is) going to happen, hopefully,” said Hörður Guðjónsson, voting in the capital, Reykjavik. “We always have had these old parties taking care of things. I hope we see the light now to come in with a younger people, new ideas.”
Iceland, a nation of about 400,000 people, is proud of its democratic traditions, describing itself as arguably the world’s oldest parliamentary democracy. The island’s parliament, the Althingi, was founded in 930 by the Norsemen who settled the country.
How does the election work?
Voters are choosing 63 members of the Althingi in an election that will allocate seats both by regional constituencies and proportional representation. Parties need at least 5 percent of the vote to win seats in parliament. Eight parties were represented in the outgoing parliament, and 10 parties are contesting this election.
Turnout is traditionally high by international standards, with 80 percent of registered voters casting ballots in the 2021 parliamentary election.
Why now?
A windswept island near the Arctic Circle, Iceland normally holds elections during the warmer months of the year. But Benediktsson decided on Oct. 13 that his coalition couldn’t last any longer, and he asked President Halla Tómasdóttir to dissolve the Althingi.
“The weakness of this society is that we have no very strong party and we have no very strong leader of any party,’’ said Vilhjálmur Bjarnason a former member of parliament. “We have no charming person with a vision … That is very difficult for us.”
Despite the electoral headwinds, Benediktsson expressed confidence that his Independence Party could emerge on top.
“It was an uphill battle for my party, initially, but as we moved on into the election campaign, I think things started to turn our way and I feel that this will be a very exciting election day,” he said.
Why is Iceland’s politics so fractured?
The splintering of Iceland’s political landscape came after the 2008 financial crisis, which prompted years of economic upheaval after the country’s debt-swollen banks collapsed.
The crisis led to anger and distrust of the parties that had traditionally traded power back and forth, and prompted the creation of new parties ranging from the environment focused Left-Green Alliance to the Pirate Party, which advocates direct democracy and individual freedoms.
“This is one of the consequences of the economic crash,’’ said Eva H. Önnudóttir, a professor of political science at the University of Iceland. “It’s just the changed landscape. Parties, especially the old parties, have maybe kind of been hoping that we would go back to how things were before, but that’s not going to happen.”
What are the issues?
Like many Western countries, Iceland has been buffeted by the rising cost of living and immigration pressures.
Inflation peaked at an annual rate of 10.2 percent in February 2023, fueled by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While inflation slowed to 5.1 percent in October, that is still high compared with neighboring countries. The US inflation rate stood at 2.6 percent last month, while the European Union’s rate was 2.3 percent.
Iceland is also struggling to accommodate a rising number of asylum-seekers, creating tensions within the small, traditionally homogenous country. The number of immigrants seeking protection in Iceland jumped to more than 4,000 in each of the past three years, compared with a previous average of less than 1,000.
What about the volcano?
Repeated eruptions of a volcano in the southwestern part of the country have displaced thousands of people and strained public finances. One year after the first eruption forced the evacuation of the town of Grindavik, many residents still don’t have secure housing, leading to complaints that the government has been slow to respond.
But it also added to a shortage of affordable housing exacerbated by Iceland’s tourism boom. Young people are struggling to get a foot on the housing ladder at a time when short-term vacation rentals have reduced the housing stock available for locals, Önnudóttir said.
“The housing issue is becoming a big issue in Iceland,” she said.

Topics: Iceland Bjarni Benediktsson Parliament elections

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Trump taps Kash Patel for FBI director, a loyalist who would aid effort to upend law enforcement

Updated 01 December 2024
AP
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Trump taps Kash Patel for FBI director, a loyalist who would aid effort to upend law enforcement

  • Patel, the child of Indian immigrants and a former public defender, spent several years as a Justice Department prosecutor before catching the Trump administration’s attention as a staffer for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Updated 01 December 2024
AP

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, turning to a fierce ally to upend America’s premier law enforcement agency and rid the government of perceived “conspirators.” It’s the latest bombshell Trump has thrown at the Washington establishment and a test for how far Senate Republicans will go in confirming his nominees.
“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Trump posted Saturday night on Truth Social. “Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.”
The selection is in keeping with Trump’s view that the government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies require a radical transformation and his stated desire for retribution against supposed adversaries. It shows how Trump, still fuming over years of federal investigations that shadowed his first administration and later led to his indictment, is moving to place atop the FBI and Justice Department close allies he believes will protect rather than scrutinize him.
Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump wrote Saturday night.
It remains unclear whether Patel could be confirmed, even by a Republican-led Senate, though Trump has also raised the prospect of using recess appointments to push his selections through.
Patel would replace Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017 but quickly fell out of favor with the president and his allies. Though the position carries a 10-year term, Wray’s removal was not unexpected given Trump’s long-running public criticism of him and the FBI, including after a search of his Florida’s property for classified documents and two investigations that resulted in his indictment.
Patel’s past proposals, if carried out, would lead to convulsive change for an agency tasked not only with investigating violations of federal law but also protecting the country from terrorist attacks, foreign espionage and other threats.
He’s called for dramatically reducing the FBI’s footprint, a perspective that dramatically sets him apart from earlier directors who have sought additional resources for the bureau, and has suggested closing down the bureau’s headquarters in Washington and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state” — Trump’s pejorative catch-all for the federal bureaucracy.
And though the Justice Department in 2021 halted the practice of secretly seizing reporters’ phone records during leak investigation, Patel has said he intends to aggressively hunt down government officials who leak information to reporters and change the law to make it easier to sue journalists.
During an interview with Steve Bannon last December, Patel said he and others “will go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media.”
“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said, referring to the 2020 presidential election in which Biden, the Democratic challenger, defeated Trump. “We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
Trump also announced Saturday that he would nominate Sheriff Chad Chronister, the top law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County, Florida, to serve as the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Chronister is another Florida Republican named to Trump’s administration. He has worked for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office since 1992 and became the top law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County 2017. He also worked closely with Trump’s choice for attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Patel, the child of Indian immigrants and a former public defender, spent several years as a Justice Department prosecutor before catching the Trump administration’s attention as a staffer for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The panel’s then-chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., was a strong Trump ally who tasked Patel with running the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Patel ultimately helped author what became known as the “Nunes Memo,” a four-page report that detailed how it said the Justice Department had erred in obtaining a warrant to surveil a former Trump campaign volunteer. The memo’s release faced vehement opposition from Wray and the Justice Department, who warned that it would be reckless to disclose sensitive information.
A subsequent inspector general report identified significant problems with FBI surveillance during the Russia investigation, but also found no evidence that the FBI had acted with partisan motives in conducting the probe and said there had been a legitimate basis to open the inquiry.
The Russia investigation fueled Patel’s suspicions of the FBI, the intelligence community and also the media, which he has called “the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen.” Seizing on compliance errors in the FBI’s use of a spy program that officials say is vital for national security, Patel has accused the FBI of having “weaponized” its surveillance powers against innocent Americans.
Patel parlayed that work into influential administration roles on the National Security Council and later as chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller.
He continued as a loyal Trump lieutenant even after he left office, accompanying the president-elect into court during his criminal trial in New York and asserting to reporters that Trump was the victim of a “constitutional circus.”
In addition to his 2023 memoir, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Patel has published two children’s books that lionize Trump. “The Plot Against the King” features a thinly veiled Hillary Clinton as the villain going after “King Donald,” while Kash, a wizard called the Distinguished Discoverer, exposes a nefarious plot.

 

Topics: Trump Returns President-elect Donald Trump FBI Kash Patel

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British PM Starmer to set out detailed policy targets in week ahead

Updated 01 December 2024
Reuters
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British PM Starmer to set out detailed policy targets in week ahead

  • Starmer said he would set out a “plan for change” as the next phase of delivering goals including the fastest sustained growth in the Group of Seven advanced economies, a halving of serious violent crime, lower energy bills and less ill health
Updated 01 December 2024
Reuters

LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will set more detailed targets in the coming week to achieve the government’s five main goals on areas including growth, health care, crime and green energy, as his party approaches five months in power.
Labour won a sweeping majority in Britain’s lower house of parliament in July, taking power for the first time in 14 years, but has fallen just behind the opposition Conservative Party in some recent opinion polls.
Starmer said he would set out a “plan for change” as the next phase of delivering goals including the fastest sustained growth in the Group of Seven advanced economies, a halving of serious violent crime, lower energy bills and less ill health.
“Mission-led government does not mean picking milestones because they are easy or will happen anyway. It means relentlessly driving real improvements in the lives of working people,” Starmer said in a statement released by his office.
Government ministers and officials would be told to focus on these goals rather than individual ministries’ traditional priorities, Starmer’s office added.
Labour has not had an easy start in office. Ministers say the previous government concealed the extent of problems in areas such as prisons and the immigration system, contributing to what finance minister Rachel Reeves said was a 22 billion pound ($28 billion) black hole in public finances.
Conservatives dispute this and say much of the cost overrun reflected Labour decisions to increase pay for public-sector workers and standard in-year spending variations.
Reeves announced 40 billion pounds of tax rises in her first budget last month — up from around 8 billion pounds in Labour’s pre-election plan — on top of higher borrowing to halt a fall in public investment planned by the previous government.
Businesses have complained that they will bear the brunt of the tax rises and will probably cut investment or jobs and need to raise prices as a result.

Topics: keir starmer Britain UK Labour Party

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Trump wants pardoned real estate developer Charles Kushner to become US ambassador to France

Updated 01 December 2024
AP
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Trump wants pardoned real estate developer Charles Kushner to become US ambassador to France

Updated 01 December 2024
AP

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday he intends to nominate real estate developer Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France.
Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post, calling Charles Kushner “a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker.”
Kushner is the founder of Kushner Companies, a real estate firm. Jared Kushner is a former White House senior adviser to Trump who is married to Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka.
The elder Kushner was pardoned by Trump in December 2020 after pleading guilty years earlier to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations.
Prosecutors alleged that after Charles Kushner discovered his brother-in-law was cooperating with federal authorities in an investigation, he hatched a scheme for revenge and intimidation.
Kushner hired a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law, then arranged to have the encounter in a New Jersey motel room recorded with a hidden camera and the recording sent to his own sister, the man’s wife, prosecutors said.
Kushner eventually pleaded guilty to 18 counts including tax evasion and witness tampering. He was sentenced in 2005 to two years in prison — the most he could receive under a plea deal, but less than what Chris Christie, the US attorney for New Jersey at the time and later governor and Republican presidential candidate, had sought.
Christie has blamed Jared Kushner for his firing from Trump’s transition team in 2016, and has called Charles Kushner’s offenses “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was US attorney.”
Trump and the elder Kushner knew each other from real estate circles and their children were married in 2009.

Topics: Donald Trump US ambassador France

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