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The prime minister, Theresa May raised the UK threat level to its highest level, critical amid ISIS claiming that there is a terror cell in the UK, they used the words “detachment” rather than a “soldier” was responsible for the bombing.
Critical means that a terrorist attack is expected to be imminent.
May said: “The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) has now decided to raise the national threat level from severe to critical.
“This means that their assessment is that a future attack may be imminent.
“Following JTAC’s decision police have asked for authorisation from the Secretary of State for Defence to enact part of the first phase of operation Temperer.
“This is a well established plan to provide military support to the police and for this period military personnel will replace police officers on guard duties at certain protected sites which are not accessible to the public.
“The public will see more armed police on the transport network and on our streets providing extra protection and this is a proportionate and sensible step which will provide extra reassurance and protection while the investigation progresses.
“The public should go about their business in the normal way and as usual be vigilant and cooperate with the police.
“I’ve said earlier that terrorism is a great challenge of our times but by standing together we will defeat it.”
Scotland Yard are working with MI5 as a huge counter-terrorism investigation has been launched.
The assistant commissioner for specialist operations of the Metropolitan Police Service, Mark Rowley said: “We are making excellent progress at the moment as we pursue our lines of enquiry to identify, to locate and to arrest those responsible.
“This is a very complex investigation which is continuing at speed with the full weight of the London counter terrorism’s policing resources assisted by colleagues across the country and by our intelligence agency partners at M15.
“We have hundreds of police officers trawling through CCTV footage, detectives have spoken to tens of witnesses and we’ve taken a number of calls to the anti-terrorism hotline from members of the public.”
He added: “Meanwhile the improvised explosive device on the train, the remnants of it have now been made safe and they’ve been taken away for specialist examination by forensics scientists.
“Whilst we chase down the suspects we are strengthening our policing resources on the streets of London and across the country.
“The public should expect to see extra policing resources armed and unarmed on the streets, additional stop and search using counter terrorism powers and potentially additional road checks.
“What this means for members of public over the weekend is that at transport hubs, at events and in crowded places they will see these extra resources.”
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