MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Terror attack in London next to Parliament leaves 5 dead and at least 40 injured

The attack unfolded around 2:40 p.m., Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said at a news conference.

A knife-wielding assailant driving a sport utility vehicle mowed down panicked pedestrians in London and stabbed a police officer outside Parliament on Wednesday in a deadly assault, prompting the hasty evacuation of the prime minister and punctuating the threat of terrorism in Europe.

 At least five people, including the assailant, were killed and at least 40 others injured in the confusing swirl of violence, which the police said they assumed had been “inspired by international terrorism.” It appeared to be the most serious such assault in London since the deadly subway bombings more than a decade ago.

Throughout a turbulent afternoon, ambulances, emergency vehicles and heavily armed security officers thronged the area outside Parliament, as one of the busiest sections of London was cordoned off and evacuated.

Prime Minister Theresa May was rushed into a vehicle and spirited back to her office. She held a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee and issued a statement on Wednesday night from her 10 Downing Street residence denouncing “the sick and depraved terrorist attack on the streets of our Capital this afternoon.”

Mrs. May also said that “the full details of exactly what happened are still emerging,” but she confirmed that the attack had been carried out by a lone male assailant. As of late Wednesday, his identity had not been released, but Scotland Yard officials said they believed they knew who he was.

The attack unfolded around 2:40 p.m., Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said at a news conference.

Driving a large sport utility vehicle, the assailant slammed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge near Parliament, killing two people and injuring many others, before crashing into a railing. A third person injured on the bridge later died at a hospital.

After the crash, the driver left the vehicle and approached Parliament, where he stabbed an armed police officer to death and was fatally shot by the police.

The dead officer was identified as Keith Palmer, 48, a member of the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command with 15 years of experience.

“This is the day we have planned for but we hoped would never happen,” Mr. Rowley said. “Sadly, it’s now a reality.”

The attack came on the anniversary of suicide bombings in Brussels that killed 32 people, along with three bombers.

It confirmed fears among counterterrorism officials that London, which had largely escaped recent terrorist attacks in Europe, would join cities like Paris, Brussels and Berlin as targets of mass violence.

“Terrorism affects us all, and France knows the pain the British people are enduring today,” President François Hollande of France said at a news conference in Villepinte, near Paris.

Mrs. May, who spoke with Mr. Hollande and President Trump, said in her statement that Parliament would meet as normal on Thursday. She vowed to never permit “the voices of hate and evil to drive us apart.”

Cmdr. B. J. Harrington of the Metropolitan Police said earlier that a “full counterterrorism investigation is underway.” He asked members of the public to report any suspicious activity and to share any images or video of the violence.

Commander Harrington said that the acting police commissioner, Craig Mackey, had been at the scene of the attack and was not injured, but was “being treated as a significant witness.”

Tobias Ellwood, center, a Conservative member of Parliament and Foreign Office minister, helped an emergency services team attend to the stabbed police officer. Credit Stefan Rousseau/Press Association, via Associated Pres.s

At least three police officers were among those injured on the bridge. Also among the injured were three 10th-grade boys from a group of visiting students from the Brittany region of France, and a woman who fell or plunged into the River Thames.

Mr. Hollande’s government said it had chartered a plane to London with families of the French victims.

Tobias Ellwood, a minister in the Foreign Office, tried to save the life of the fatally stabbed police officer by giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

The number of injured apparently included five South Korean tourists who were overwhelmed by a crowd fleeing the scene, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday morning. Three men and a man suffered fractures, and a woman had surgery for a head injury, the ministry said.

For more than two hours, astonished lawmakers inside the House of Commons, some of whom had ducked for cover, were told to stay in place as officers searched the premises office by office.