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Khalid Masood

Khalid Masood (25 December 1964 – 22 March 2017), born Adrian Russell Elms, was a British Islamic State sympathizer who carried out the 2017 Westminster attack, killing 4 and injuring 50 before he was killed by responding policemen.

Biography[]

Adrian Russell Elms was born in Dartford, Kent, England in 1964 to a family of Jamaican descent, and he grew up in Turnbridge Wells. His criminal record dated back to 1983, when he was convicted of criminal damage, and he was arrested for attacking people with knives in 2000 and 2003, some 14 years before the 2017 Westminster attack. Elms converted to Islam while in prison and changed his name to "Khalid Masood", regualrly wearing either religious robes or tracksuits and appearing to be a normal family man. In 2005, he taught English in Saudi Arabia, and he lived there from 2008 to 2009 before visiting again in 2015. He lived in the Winson Green area of Birmingham until December 2016, and he would become a radical Islamist in the following months. On 22 March 2017, he began a vehicular rampage on Westminster Bridge, running down several innocent pedestrians before leaving his vehicle and stabbing a policeman to death on the grounds of the New Palace Yard. He was shot and mortally wounded by plainclothes policemen after refusing to surrender, and he died at the scene. Masood killed 4 people and injured 50 in his attack, and Scotland Yard believed that he was motivated by international terrorism; the Islamic State's Amaq News Agency claimed that he was a soldier of the Islamic State who had responded to calls by IS to carry out attacks on Western civilian targets.

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