London police shoot one, arrest four in counter-terrorism operation – UPDATE
British police said officers shot a woman and arrested four other people in London and nearby Kent during a counter-terrorism investigation on Thursday.
UPDATE British police said they had thwarted an active terrorism plot after a woman was shot during an armed raid on a house in north London.
Armed counter-terrorism officers using CS gas stormed a house in the Willesden area of the capital on Thursday evening which had been under surveillance, shooting a woman in her 20s. She is said to be serious but stable in hospital.
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Neil Basu, Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, told reporters that six people had been arrested in the operation, five at the house and another in Kent.
“The armed entry was necessary due to the nature of the intelligence we were dealing with and involved armed officers firing CS gas into the address,” Basu said.
Asked if police had foiled an active plot, he replied: “Yes”.
All four people were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts, metropolitan police said in a statement, adding that the incident was not connected to the arrest in Whitehall, where a man carrying knives near Prime Minister Theresa May’s office was arrested on suspicion of preparing an act of terrorism.
The woman who was shot is in serious but stable condition, police said. She has not been arrested yet and is under police guard at the hospital, according to the statement.
Police did not release the names of the five people, who the police said had been under observation by counter-terrorism officers as part of an ongoing intelligence led operation.
The incident came just over a month after a British-born convert to Islam ploughed a car into pedestrians on nearby Westminster Bridge, killing four people, before stabbing to death a police officer in the grounds of parliament. The man responsible, Khalid Masood, was shot dead at the scene.
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