Police in Britain said Monday an explosion in a taxi outside a hospital in the city of Liverpool is being treated as a terrorist incident.
An explosive device that blew up a taxi in the northern English city of Liverpool on Sunday was carried on board by a passenger.
Authorities told reporters that the passenger in the taxi was carrying an improvised explosive device and asked to be taken to the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, but that a motive or what caused the device to explode was not clear.
Police said they believed they knew the identity of the passenger, who was killed by the explosion, but could not disclose it.
“Our inquiries indicate that an improvised explosive device was manufactured, and our assumption so far is that it was built by the passenger in the taxi,” said Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson of Counter-Terrorism Policing Northwest.
The explosion engulfed the taxi in flames outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital just before 11 a.m. on Sunday, when a Remembrance Day service to commemorate war dead was being held at nearby Liverpool Cathedral.
“We cannot at this time draw any connection with this but it is a line of inquiry which we are pursuing,” said Jackson.
Since the explosion, police have arrested four other men in connection with the investigation.
Three men aged 29, 26 and 21 were arrested , and Jackson said on Monday another man aged 20 had been arrested. He added that “significant items” had been found at one address while several other addresses had been or would be searched.
The explosion injured the taxi driver, who received medical treatment but has been released.
Jackson said it was unclear why the passenger had wanted to go to the hospital or what had caused the sudden explosion of the device.
Earlier, Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson described the actions of the taxi driver as heroic. The BBC said he had locked the passenger inside the vehicle.
“The taxi driver, in his heroic efforts, has managed to divert what could have been an absolutely awful disaster at the hospital,” she told BBC radio.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the driver’s “incredible presence of mind and bravery”, though he did not elaborate on the circumstances. Johnson planned to chair a meeting of the government’s emergency committee on Monday to discuss the blast.
Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters
