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Police have prevented five terror plots from being carried out in the UK in the last few months, London’s most senior police officer has said.

Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick told LBC the plots “were very close to an attack” – with some “within minutes” of being carried out.

Four terror attacks have taken place in the UK in 2017 – three in the capital.

Ms Dick, who took charge of the Met in February, said the attacks in London and Manchester had been “horrific”. She said a “very large number of plots” have been foiled over the last few years.

Ms Dick said she could not reveal details about the nature of the terror plots because arrests had been made, but added: “We’ve had a huge number of successful operations. “It’s well into the teens in the past couple of years, where we know people were intent on attacking and that’s been stopped.”

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Two Israeli policemen have been killed and a third wounded in a shooting attack near a sacred site in Jerusalem.

They were shot by three Israeli Arabs close to the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary). Police chased the attackers into the site and shot them dead.
There has been a wave of stabbings, shootings and car-rammings of Israelis predominantly by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs since late 2015.

Two of the previous attackers were Jordanians.

Police say the three men who carried out Friday’s attack were aged between 19 and 29 and came from the northern Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm. Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said that they were not previously known to the security services.

Police say the gunmen opened fire as they made their way from the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif towards Lions’ Gate, an opening in the Old City walls about 100ft (30 metres) away. The attackers were then pursued back to the compound, where they were killed.

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Ships carrying Chinese troops are heading to Djibouti to set up Beijing’s first overseas military base, reports state media.

China says the support base will be used for peacekeeping and humanitarian aid in Africa and West Asia. It will also be used for military co-operation, naval exercises and rescue missions, Xinhua said.

China has ramped up investment in Africa, as well as rapidly modernised its military in recent years.

The Xinhua report said the ships departed from the port city of Zhanjiang in China’s southern Guangdong province on Tuesday. It did not specify the number of troops or ships that departed for Djibouti, nor when the base would start operations.

The report said the Djibouti base came after “friendly negotiations” between the two countries. Previous reports said construction began last year.

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Saudi Arabia has executed four people who were convicted of carrying out terrorist attacks.

The interior ministry did not identify who was killed, but said the offences were committed in the Qatif region of the oil-rich Eastern Province.

Qatif has witnessed protests and bouts of violent unrest in recent years. It is home to many of the kingdom’s Shia Muslim minority, who complain that they are marginalised and discriminated against by the Sunni monarchy.

In the past two months, a series of attacks in Qatif have targeted security forces.

Two officers were killed in separate bombings in the town of Awamiya last Tuesday and Thursday, while another two were wounded in an attack on Saturday. In June, a third officer and two other people died in bombings. Activists have meanwhile accused security forces of opening fire on protesters, and say others are being jailed or sentenced to death for protest-related crimes.

Protests and attacks in Qatif have become more frequent since the January 2016 execution of the prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, who supported the protests.

The US military has said its controversial Thaad missile defence system successfully shot down a target during a test over the Pacific Ocean.

Thaad, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, halted a simulated, ballistic intermediate-range missile like the ones being developed by North Korea.

The test was planned months ago, but comes amid rising tension with North Korea over its weapons programme. Pyongyang claimed it has tested a series of missiles in recent weeks.

On 4 July, Pyongyang said it had carried out its first successful test of an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM). It said the Hwasong-14 could hit “any part of the world”, but the US military described it as an intermediate-range missile.

North Korea has repeatedly defied a UN resolution banning all nuclear and missile activity, and has ramped up the pace of its tests in recent months.

“The successful demonstration of Thaad against an IRBM-range missile threat bolsters the country’s defensive capability against developing missile threats in North Korea and other countries,” the US Missile Defense Agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

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