Police and counter-terrorism experts investigating Sunday's explosion outside a Liverpool hospital are looking into how the explosive device was made and whether the main charge failed to detonate. Emad Al Swealmeen (32), who is suspected of carrying out the attack, died when the bomb exploded in a taxi outside Liverpool Women's Hospital.
After the bombing, Britain raised its terrorist threat level from “substantial” to severe, the second highest possible, meaning that a terror attack is “highly likely”. Home office minister Kit Malthouse said the police had yet to establish the motivation behind the attack but would publish more details in due course.
“This is a further stark reminder about the threat we all face from terrorism,” he told MPs.
“The public should remain alert but not alarmed.”
More details have emerged about Al Swealmeen, an asylum seeker believed to be of Iraqi and Syrian heritage who had been in Britain for seven years and converted to Christianity in 2017. A motor racing fan, Al Swealmeen changed his name to Enzo Almeni after motor racing driver and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari.
Although he lived in an asylum hostel at the time of his death, he had spent eight months living with Christian couple Malcolm and Elizabeth Hitchcott following his conversion. Mr Hitchcott said he was shocked when he heard about the bombing, saying he thought Swealmeen to be "very calm, very measured, very deep thinking, and a lovely man with it" when he lived with the couple in 2017.
“During that time we saw him really blossoming as regard to his Christian faith. Every night we used to pray, my wife and him and if there was anybody else in the house we prayed for half an hour or so and studied the scriptures and we had a great time together,” Mr Hitchcott said.
“And I was in no doubt by the time that he left us at the end of that eight months, that he was a Christian.”
Security minister Damian Hinds said the investigation was moving at pace but that Merseyside Police and counter-terrorism officers had more to learn about the background to the attack. He said police were going through evidence at the house where the suspect lived and where he may have assembled the explosive device.
‘Bedroom radicalisation’
He said “bedroom radicalisation” which may have become a greater risk during coronavirus lockdowns, could have been a factor in Sunday’s attack.
“It certainly is true that we have seen a shift from directed attacks, part of a bigger organisation, where people are following instructions, sometimes quite complex organisation, and moved from that to more self-directed, self-radicalised individuals or groups,” he told Sky News.
“Rarely totally alone because people talk to one another, they take advice, they give hints, and of course during the lockdown period there have been people spending more time in front of computer screens. We know that when that happens, there can be a very small minority where radicalisation happens.”
