London attacker’s motive remains a mystery

British police released a photo and further details of Khalid Masood on Friday, as the number of people killed in his ramming and knife attack outside parliament rose to five.
The motivation for Wednesday’s attack is still not clear but a hotel manager who met Masood a few hours before the attack said his manner was jovial.
By Friday police had recovered more than 2,700 pieces of evidence, including "massive amounts of computer data", and interviewed nearly 3,500 people about Masood’s life and final hours, said Mark Rowley, Scotland Yard’s chief antiterrorism officer. But they have yet to determine whether he had been radicalised, or when.
Two additional arrests were made on Thursday night, in north-west England and in Birmingham, bringing the total number of arrests up to 10.
According to police, Masood, 52, was a black man who was born Adrian Russell Ajao on Christmas Day, 1964 and converted to Islam late in life. He was a father of three who had a string of criminal convictions for physical violence, possessing offensive weapons and breaches of the public order. He was also known in early life as Adrian Elms.
He appears to have been estranged for more than 20 years from his mother and stepfather, Janet and Philip Ajao, who live in Carmarthenshire, west Wales.
Masood and his family moved often over the past five years, first within London and finally to Birmingham. He left his last home in Birmingham at Christmas, and was alone, neighbours said.
The British newspaper The Sun, which claimed to have obtained a copy of Masood’s CV, reported that he had spent time in Saudi Arabia in 2005, teaching English.
He had a string of convictions for violent offences and had served time in prison. But Masood’s age, 52, makes him unusual among radicalised would-be perpetrators of terrorist acts.
Masood had stayed in the Preston Park hotel in Brighton, on the south coast of England, on Tuesday night, where the manager, Sabeur Tuomi, remembered him "joking and smiling " and said he "checked out peacefully."
The next afternoon, Masood ploughed his rented Hyundai 4X4 into a crowd of pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing three and injuring 50. Then, rushing towards the Houses of Parliament with a knife, he stabbed a policeman fatally before being shot.
A fifth victim, a 75-year-old man named Leslie Rhodes who was visiting a nearby hospital, died of his injuries on Friday. Two more of Masood’s victims remain in critical condition in hospital.
The photograph police released on Friday shows Masood as a burly, bald man with a beard. They are still trying to determine establish whether he acted "totally alone inspired by terrorist propaganda" or whether he was supported or directed by other terrorist individuals or groups.
Steve Hewitt, a historian at the University of Birmingham who specialises in security and counter-terrorism, told The National that "thanks to the internet and satellite television," anyone anywhere could now be radicalised, "as a result of issues that have nothing to do with the home environment".
Ever since four British men carried out the deadly July 2005 attacks that killed 56 people in London, British intelligence agencies have maintained "a focus on terrorists who are British as opposed to foreign", Dr Hewitt said.
Given Britain’s geographic isolation as an island, and given that visitors cannot enter the country on Schengen visas, as on mainland Europe, it is difficult for terrorists to arrive in the UK purely to carry out attacks.

Source: The National