A deadly blast in a taxi outside a hospital in Liverpool on Sunday is being treated as a terrorist incident, UK police said on Monday.
The passenger in the taxi was killed in the explosion and the driver was injured.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to chair a meeting of the government’s emergency committee on Monday in response to the blast.
What police said about the Liverpool blast
Russ Jackson, the head of Counterterrorism Policing in northwest England, told a press conference that the explosion involved an improvised explosive device.
“Although the motivation for this incident is yet to be understood, given all the circumstances, it has been declared a
terrorist incident and counter-terrorism policing are continuing with the investigation,” Jackson said.
He said “enquiries will now continue to seek to understand how the device was built, the motivation for the incident and to understand if anyone else was involved in it.”
Police had said on Sunday that they arrested three men in their 20s in connection with the blast. Jackson said a fourth suspect was arrested.
Link to remembrance events?
The vehicle exploded outside the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, just a minute before the start of a Remembrance Day service to commemorate war dead at nearby Liverpool Cathedral.
“We are of course aware that there were Remembrance events just a short distance away from the hospital and that the ignition occurred shortly before 11 a.m.,” said Jackson.
“We cannot at this time draw any connection with this but it is a line of inquiry which we are pursuing.”
The passenger had asked the taxi driver, who has been treated in a hospital and released, to drive to the hospital, Jackson said. He added that it was unclear why the passenger wanted to go to the hospital.
British media had earlier reported, citing investigators and friends of the cabbie, that the passenger had wanted to go to the annual Remembrance Day service in the Anglican cathedral.
fb/rt (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)
Liverpool taxi blast was ‘terrorist incident’ — UK police
Source: Pinoy Pop News
0 Comments