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Woman Shot by London Police in Terror Raid, 2 Others Charged with Terror Offences | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Armed police respond outside the attack on Westminster Bridge in London on March 22, 2017. Reuters


Three women from London, including a person who was shot by officers during a raid by counterterrorism police, have been charged with preparing acts of terrorism and plotting murder.

The Metropolitan Police said Rizlaine Boular, 21, and two other women — one of them Boular’s mother, Mina Dich, 43 — are accused of preparing terrorist acts and conspiracy to murder “a person or persons unknown.”

Boular, Dich and 20-year-old Khawla Barghouthi were detained April 27 during police raids in London and nearby Kent county. Boular was formally arrested upon her release from a hospital three days after she was shot and injured.

Seven other people who were arrested as part of the same operation, including women ages 18 and 19 and a 16-year-old boy, have been released without charges.

Police say they disrupted an active terror plot when they made the arrests.

British officials have set the threat level from international terrorism at “severe,” indicating an attack is highly likely.

In an unrelated case that also unfolded on April 27, a London man was arrested near Parliament carrying several knives. Khalid Mohammed Omar Ali, 27, has been charged with preparing terrorist acts this year and with making or having explosives in Afghanistan in 2012.

On March 22, Khalid Masood drove a rented SUV into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge, killing four, before fatally stabbing a police officer inside Parliament’s gates. He was shot dead by police.

Britain has been on its second-highest alert level of “severe” since August 2014, meaning an attack by militants is considered highly likely.