UK raises terror threat to severe after Liverpool hospital blast

The United Kingdom has raised the national terror threat level after a blast near a hospital.

Police were called on Sunday morning about reports of an explosion involving a taxi at Liverpool Women’s Hospital. Photos showed a vehicle in flames near the hospital’s main entrance.

A man had brought a homemade bomb with him into a taxi and asked to be taken to the hospital. As the car pulled up at the facility, there was an explosion. The passenger died. The taxi driver was treated for injuries but has been released.

Police named the dead man as 32-year-old Emad Al Swealmeen. They did not give further details.

Four men have been arrested under anti-terrorism laws; their ages ranged from 20 to 29. They were detained in the Kensington area of the northwest England city under the Terrorism Act.

Merseyside police said in a statement that the vehicle, a taxi, “pulled up at the hospital shortly before the explosion occurred”.

“Work is still going on to establish what has happened and could take some time before we are in a position to confirm anything,” the statement said.

Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson, from Counter-Terrorism Policing for the North West, said the man who died had asked to be taken to Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

The explosion occurred just before 11:00 GMT on Remembrance Sunday, the time people across Britain pause in memory of those killed in wars.

The explosion has been declared a terrorist attack and the UK raised the terror threat level from substantial to severe, meaning another attack was highly likely.

Britain’s interior minister, Home Secretary Priti Patel, decried the “awful incident”.

The Liverpool Women’s Hospital said it immediately restricted visiting access until further notice and diverted patients to other hospitals “where possible”.

Fire services said they extinguished the car fire rapidly, and a person had left the car before the fire “developed to the extent that it did”.