LONDON (AP) - Detectives searched several properties as they built up a profile Wednesday of a Sudan-born man who crashed a car outside Britain's Parliament in what police are treating as an act of terrorism.
Police are trying to determine what was in the mind of 29-year-old Salih Khater when he plowed a car into cyclists and pedestrians, injuring three, before smashing into a security barrier.
Khater, a British citizen of Sudanese origin, was arrested at the scene of Tuesday's crash on suspicion of "the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism," police said. Police said later he was also suspected of attempted murder.
British authorities do not name suspects until they are charged, but media and neighbors said the arrested man was Khater. Police confirmed the suspect was a 29-year-old British man originally from Sudan. They said he was not previously known to counterterrorism officers or the intelligence services.
Police said they had finished searching an apartment where the suspect had lived in the central England city of Birmingham, as well as another property in the city and a third in Nottingham, about 50 miles away. They continued to search a third property in Birmingham, 100 miles northwest of London.
A Facebook page for a man of the same name said he lives in Birmingham, works as a shop manager, and has studied at Sudan University of Science and Technology. Coventry University in central England said Khater had studied accounting there between September 2017 and May 2018, but had failed his first-year studies and was no longer enrolled.
Ahmed Abdi, a neighbor of Khater in Birmingham, said he recognized him from news footage, "and I was shocked."
"He was very, very quiet and he never spoke to anybody. He would say nothing to nobody," Abdi said.
The suspect was being held at a London police station as detectives traced the movements of the Ford Fiesta which careered across a road, hitting cyclists and pedestrians, then crashed into a security barrier at Parliament. Three people were injured, but none remains in hospital.
Detectives said the car was driven from Birmingham to London late Monday, and drove around the area near Parliament for an hour and a half Tuesday morning before the rush-hour crash.
Ali Mohamed, a member of Birmingham's Sudanese community, told reporters Khater had gone to London for an appointment at the Sudanese embassy to apply for travel back to his homeland.
The incident appears to be the second in less than 18 months in which a vehicle has been used to attack the heart of Britain's government. During the past two decades, authorities have tightened security around Parliament with fences, crash barriers and armed police.
Now the rise of vehicle attacks around the world is triggering calls for traffic to be barred from Parliament Square, currently a busy traffic route.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan told the BBC the plan presented challenges, but "it's possible to have a design solution that meets the objectives in relation to keeping our buildings and our people as safe as we can do, but also not losing what's wonderful about our city which is a vibrant democracy."
Police on Tuesday flooded the streets around the iconic neo-Gothic Parliament buildings and cordoned off the area that attracts tourists as well as lawmakers after the crash in front of Parliament's House of Lords. Police said they are treating the incident as a terrorist attack.