Metro attack in London, arrested under suspicion. Alarm returned for British Airways flight to Paris

Scotland Yard has scoured London, hit in its arteries, again, to look for those responsible for the Parsons Green underground attack where 30 people were injured . A second suspect was arrested today: he is a 21-year-old detained at 11.50 pm on Saturday in Hounslow, in the western part of the British capital that is now, explains Scotland Yard, under interrogation in a police station south of London.

It is therefore excluded that behind the attack there was only a “lone wolf”, a lone wolf, Interior Minister Amber Rudd told the BBC., according to which it is however “too early to draw conclusions”. Furthermore, there is still no evidence that ISIS is responsible for the attack, although it is inevitable that the self-styled Islamic state will be called into question.

The first terrorist suspect was instead taken in Dover yesterday morning. An eighteen year old captured by the Kent police in the port area, perhaps about to embark for France. According to media reports, it would be a problematic orphan boy, adopted by Ronald and Penelope Jones, an English couple known for having hosted 268 children without parents over the years. The Daily Mail claims he was arrested two weeks ago, no one knows why, and then released. For the Mirror it would be a Syrian refugee. The Jones neighbors say that besides him there was a second young Syrian guest, “very silent”.

Minister Rudd said the investigations are focusing on how the 18-year-old arrested yesterday was “radicalized”. Then he called “pure speculation” the statement of US President Donald Trump that the bomber would be a terrorist already known to Scotland Yard.

• POLICE IN SUNBURY-ON-THAMES
The house of the couple that housed the young man arrested in Sunbury-on-Thames, a town in the county of Surrey, on the banks of the Thames and not far from Heathrow airport, it was searched in a police blitz yesterday afternoon. After the control and evacuation of the neighbors and residents of the area, the presence of a bomb in the house of Cavendish Road was denied and the families who were away from the area were able to return. But the agents are still there this morning and research continues. During the night the property was cordoned off and protected by a barrier, according to local journalists, this “suggests that they intend to stay in the house for some time yet”.

• EVACUATED BRITISH AIRWAYS PLANE IN PARIS
In morning a British Airways plane, which was supposed to take off from Paris to London Heathrow (BA 0303) at 7.25 was blocked on the runway at Roissy airport and evacuated due to an unspecified terrorist threat which turned out to be false.
Paris, British Airways evacuated plane: it was a false alarm

Police and firefighters have checked the British aircraft on the runway. Passenger James Anderson, a 20-year-old businessman who was headed from London to London Heathrow Airport, told the Associated Press that the pilot had initially told passengers that he had to land due to technical problems. After about an hour, the passengers were warned that the plane had to move to another part of the airport, where the police arrived and surrounded the plane. “The commander finally stated that there was a direct security threat involving our flight,” explained Anderson.

According to the Independent, which mentions a passenger on the flight departing from Charles de Gaulle, the police searched all passengers. A spokesman for British Airways, quoted by the newspaper, said: “The safety of our customers is always our priority”, adding that “additional security checks are underway as a precautionary measure”. Police checked passengers and baggage and verified that there was no ongoing terrorist threat. The airport has announced, it is read on Twitter, that the “checks have been completed”, the “passengers have been re-docked” and the flight is departing.

• LONDON REDUCES ALERT TO “GRAVE”
The arrests and substantial progress in the investigation of the underground attack led the London government to report the terrorism alert to the “grave” level (highly probable attack) in the afternoon. Following the attack, the threshold had been raised to “critical”, the highest on the risk scale, which presupposes the possibility of new “imminent” attacks. The statement was made by Interior Minister Amber Rudd.

• UK PROPOSES AGREEMENT TO EU
The British minister for Brexit, David Davis, is convinced that the United Kingdom and the European bloc must form a new pact in order not to undermine the fight against terrorism after the London divorce from Brussels. As part of the British Brexit negotiations, Davis said he was in favor of a new treaty to give legal dignity to joint intelligence work after March 29, 2019, the date on which the UK is scheduled to leave the EU. “A real international collaboration is absolutely crucial for the United Kingdom and for the EU”, he commented, “we already have a deep level of collaboration with the EU in terms of security and it is in our interest to continue to maintain it”.
17 September 2017