page_title: 2017 Westminster attack
section_title: Investigation
hierarchical_section_title: 2017 Westminster attack / Investigation
caption_attribution_description: English: Media and Police outside flat on Hagley Road Birmingham on 23rd March 2017 following Police raid related to Westminster Terror Attack on 22nd March 2017
context_page_description: On 22 March 2017, a terrorist attack took place outside the Palace of Westminster in London, seat of the British Parliament. The attacker, 52-year-old Briton Khalid Masood, drove a car into pedestrians on the pavement along the south side of Westminster Bridge and Bridge Street, injuring more than 50 people, four of them fatally. He then crashed the car into the perimeter fence of the Palace grounds and ran into New Palace Yard, where he fatally stabbed an unarmed police officer. He was then shot by an armed police officer, and died at the scene.
  Police treated the attack as "Islamist-related terrorism". Masood said in a final text message that he was waging jihad in revenge for Western military action in Muslim countries in the Middle East. Amaq News Agency, which is linked to Islamic State, said the attacker answered the group's calls to target citizens of states that were fighting against it, though the claim was questioned by the UK police and government. Police have found no link with a terrorist organisation and believe Masood acted alone.
context_section_description: At 23:00 on 22 March, West Midlands Police raided a flat in Hagley Road, Birmingham. By the morning of 23 March, six locations in East London and Birmingham had been raided resulting in the arrests of eight people on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. Officials also carried out searches in London, Brighton and Carmarthenshire. The investigation was named Operation Classific. By 24 March, three further arrests had taken place, two men overnight in the West Midlands and North West England and a woman during the day in Manchester. A woman, arrested earlier in East London, was released on bail. Later on 24 March, seven of those initially arrested were released without further action and the woman arrested in Manchester was released on bail.
  By 25 March, only one man from Birmingham remained in custody and the woman on bail from East London had been removed from police enquiries. Up to that point in the investigation, 2,700 items had been seized and 3,500 witnesses had been contacted. A further arrest was made in Birmingham on 26 March. By 1 April, all 12 suspects arrested after the attack had been released without charge.
caption: Police and media outside the Hagley Road premises that were raided on 22 March, seen on the morning following the raid
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