{UAH} Police race to unravel past of London killer

Police race to unravel past of London killer

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• Masood joked night before attack • Long history of offending revealed 'We are determined to find out if he acted totally alone inspired by propaganda or if others directed him' Mark Rowley, asst commissioner

People getting on with their days, saying they love London – this is not what Nigel likes to see at all

Counter-terrorism investigators were investigating Khalid Masood's life and associations across Britain yesterday as they raced to discover what led him to kill four people and injure more than 50 in Wednesday's murderous attack in Westminster.

Dan Kitwood/ Getty Images'Farage has spoken volumes yet revealed a yawning silence'

A joint investigation by Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command and MI5 saw new arrests on Thursday in London, Birmingham and Manchester with four people still in custody last night, while properties were searched in Wales and southern England.

Police want to discover if Masood, who was shot dead by armed police, was encouraged, supported or directed in the atrocity. The 52-year-old mowed down people in the heart of London then stabbed a police officer to death as he tried to burst into the Palace of Westminster.

Two minutes before the attack started at about 2.40pm on Wednesday, Masood used the WhatsApp communications app on his mobile phone, although it is not known why.

Two people remained in a critical condition in hospital last night. Yesterday morning, police named Masood's fourth victim as 75-year-old Leslie Rhodes.

MI5 is urgently trying to discover how someone could come to believe in Islamic State's violent ideology and hatch a murderous plot against high-profile targets to gain worldwide attention, all without the domestic security service having any idea it was coming.

Fresh details about Masood's life emerged yesterday. He had a 20-year history of offending that saw him jailed at least twice. He had converted to Islam more than a decade ago and used several names during his life, having been born as Adrian Elms and brought up as Adrian Ajao before adopting a Muslim name.

So far police believe he acted alone when he drove a hired car into civilians on Westminster Bridge before running into the grounds of parliament and stabbing a police officer to death. It emerged that on the eve of the attack he had checked into a Brighton hotel under his own name. The hotel manager said that Masood had been "laughing and joking".

Mark Rowley, Britain's top counterterrorism officer, said: "Whilst there is no evidence of further threats you will understand our determination to find out if he either acted totally alone inspired by terrorist propaganda, or if others have encouraged, supported or directed him."

He described as "significant" two arrests made in Manchester and Birmingham, with another made yesterday. In total, four of the 11 people arrested remain in custody. They were all detained on suspicion of preparing terrorist offences. An address searched by police in Carmarthenshire, Wales, is believed to be a farmhouse, belonging to his mother.

With key questions unanswered about the man who inflicted the worst mass casualty terrorist attack on Britain in more than a decade, Rowley said investigators needed help from the public: "We remain keen to hear from anyone who knew Khalid Masood well; understands who his associates were; and can provide information about places he has recently visited

"There might well be people out there who did have concerns about Masood but weren't sure or didn't feel comfortable for whatever reason in passing information to us."

The man described by Islamic State propagandists as a "soldier" in their campaign of violence was born Adrian Elms, and the Guardian has established he grew up in the archetypal English town of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, with two half-brothers.

But in 2000 he was jailed for grievous bodily harm after stabbing a man in the face following a row reported to have had racial overtones. After being released from jail he attacked someone else and was imprisoned again.

Seventeen people are still being treated for their injuries in five London hospitals. Two of those are in critical condition, according to the Metropolitan police, with one person's injuries considered lifethreatening. One police officer struck on the bridge, PC Kris Aves, 35, is feared to have suffered severe injuries.

More than 50 people, of at least 12 nationalities, were injured in Masood's attack on Westminster Bridge. Of these, 31 initially required hospital treatment.

One woman rescued from the Thames, Andreea Cristea, 29, from Romania, was in London with her fiance, who had been planning to propose to her. Masood's car struck her, throwing her into the river. She underwent an emergency operation for a blood clot on the brain.

Prince Charles visited some of the injured in hospital as police named the fourth victim of Masood's attack to die. Rhodes, of south London, died in hospital overnight from his injuries sustained on Westminster Bridge. The others killed in the attack were PC Keith Palmer, 48, who

was fatally stabbed by Masood inside the parliamentary gates; Kurt Cochran, 54, an American tourist, and Aysha Frade, 43, a London teacher. An internet fundraising appeal for Palmer's family has raised more than £600,000.

Past terrorist attacks in Britain have led to debates about new laws or initiatives to counter the lure that violent jihad has for a small number of British based people.

Pent-up anger among law enforcement and government has spilled over, with Downing Street demanding social media companies to do more to expunge extremist material from the internet. The prime minister's spokesman said firms such as Facebook and Google "can and must do more" to remove inflammatory material from the web and that it was up to them to respond to public concern.

"Social media companies have a responsibility when it comes to making sure this material is not disseminated and we have been clear repeatedly that we think that they can and must do more," the spokesman told journalists.

"We are always talking with them on how to achieve that. The ball is now in their court. We will see how they respond."

During the aftermath of the attack hundreds of people were rushed into Westminster Abbey as a sanctuary, in case of further attacks. Yesterday the Archbishop of Canterbury and Muslim leaders were among those joining an interfaith service to remember the victims of Masood. During their jolly to Washington for Trump's inauguration, Nigel Farage and Brexit financier Arron Banks staged the most solemn of pilgrimages to Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the grave of a British soldier who perished in 1944. The fact that he succumbed to anaemia whilst working a desk job approximately 4,000 miles from Normandy – perhaps the only person in Arlington not to have actually died for their country – was somewhat de-emphasised. It's the pose that counts. They took a documentary crew with them, obviously, and I picture the footage as the political version of Spinal Tap at Elvis's headstone.

In general, Farage's definition of "respect" is so wantonly ludicrous that it has the power to kick even football's "respect agenda" into second place. Part of the shtick of guys like Farage is their belief that they embody "British values" such as "respect" and "decency" and "not talking down our great country". The fact that they are currently choosing to honour this creed by telling complete lies about London for money on Fox News is perhaps the least British thing imaginable. If Farage really is terrified on the streets of degenerate London, like Abu Hopkins says she is, then this scourge of "snowflakes" is the biggest one out there.

Some people warn against listening to the likes of Nigel Farage in the wake of a terror attack, but I disagree. These are the times you find out how strikingly little Nigel has to say. It was the same after the murder of the MP Jo Cox – an extremist killing, you might recall, that Farage found it rather less easy to talk about. In fact, on that occasion Nigel was so incapable of locating anything approaching the right tone that he just had to shut up completely for a couple of days. If part of being a leader is rising to find the right words at difficult times – then Nigel ain't no leader, bruv.

To many of the rest of us, his silence spoke volumes. In the wake of the Westminster terror attack, Farage has spoken volumes yet revealed a yawning silence. If the best thing you can come up with on London is a series of porkies you can only get away with on American cable news – well, you may consider your ideas cupboard rather bare. Farage reminds me of Paul Burrell, Princess Di's former butler, who plugs his silly take on British etiquette to credulous Americans who wouldn't be expected to know any better.

Meanwhile, it is fair to class Nigel's use of the Westminster situation as "developing". it seems to have gone something along these lines: the attacker will be an immigrant, won't he? Right: the problem is immigration. Hang on, what? He's a 52-year-old man born in Kent? Shit. I'm also a 52-year-old man born in Kent. Right: I'm changing what I said. The problem is integration. Give Nigel another three-quarters of a fact and he'll have to adapt again. I imagine the problem will be Islam. We know his mancrush Donald Trump cheats at golf – I bet if you play with Nigel he's always saying things like: "Right, that bird put me off – I'm taking a mulligan."

It's the same with his financial backer, Banks. Not so long ago I mentioned that Arron always tweets like he's doing 97mph in a Vauxhall Cavalier with a suit jacket hung up in the rear window. I might now add that he changes lanes in the same style. First Westminster was linked to "illegals", then he suddenly realised about 50 yards too late that he needed to take the integration turnoff. To watch Banks move from "immigration" to "integration" was to imagine all the surrounding cars go into Matrix-style slo-mo as he cut across three lanes, shouting "Friday night's gonna be bigly, mate!" at his supplier on the hands-free.

Look, I sympathise. On the one hand, these guys have to make use of attacks like Westminster. It's good for business. On the other, couldn't this latest one have happened – to borrow the title of the Guardian series – anywhere but Westminster? I mean, Westminster is supposed to be a byword. Few have worked harder than Nigel to make it stand for the worst of everything.

It's conventional to speak of a terrorist atrocity as an attack on our values. Yet the public response to the one perpetrated in Westminster on Wednesday must feel like an attack on Farage's values. People using #Westminster as a hashtag of solidarity, people getting on with their days, people saying they love London – this is not what Nigel likes to see at all. Everybody ordinary and decent HATES London – wasn't that the pleasingly simple takeout from the referendum?

Perhaps this is why his gang have tried to seize back the initiative with an announcement. Yesterday Arron Banks revealed he is to fund people to stand in 100 seats against remainsupporting MPs, who embody the worst of Westminster. It is a "drain the swamp" exercise, he explained, in which he is assisted by David Cameron's former strategist, Steve Hilton. (Oh dear. Hilton's blue-sky thinking is now so up in the clouds that he can't see what horrors he's being used by. He reminds me of the rarefied nuclear scientists Kurt Vonnegut satirised – the type indifferent to the uses of their work, who will probably be playing cat's cradle when the metaphorical bomb drops.) Still, it's all another manic lane change to divert the eye, which it would presumably be very "un-British" not to "respect".

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