Anti-terror cops arrest student feared to be plotting police officer murder as woman is shot and seriously wounded in raid
A WOMAN was shot and seriously wounded as anti-terror cops swooped for a student feared to be plotting the murder of a police officer.
Suspect Mohamed Amoudi, 21, is thought to have been planning to strike in a crowded tourist area of central London.
The Sun can reveal that the radicalised student was held two years ago on suspicion of trying to travel to Syria.
He was arrested shortly before 7pm on Thursday when he allegedly tried to run from police as he got off a bus near his home in Willesden, North West London.
A 21-year-old woman, believed to be a relative, was shot a few minutes later as police stormed the family home in nearby Harlesden Road.
Sources suggested the woman had not obeyed robust instructions to “freeze” as they burst in after blasting noxious gas canisters into the house.
Five loud bangs were heard on video taken of the raid by local residents.
One source stressed that the booming sounds were the CS gas-type diffusers being fired into the house to cause panic and disarray, rather than shots.
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A less audible thud could be heard a split-second before cops used a spring-loaded enforcer to smash open the front door of the Victorian terraced property.
The officer who opened fire has been suspended from firearms duties as a matter of course while the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigates the shooting.
Fears of attack on ‘crowded tourist place’ in London The IPCC declined to say how many times the woman was shot or how many police rounds were fired.
Last night she was under police guard in a “serious but stable” condition in hospital.
Sources suggested her condition was not life-threatening.
Police said six people were arrested in connection with the operation.
They included a boy of 16, thought to be Amoudi’s brother Muhanat, and a 20-year-old woman at the family address.
A man and woman, both 28, were arrested later when they returned to the property. And a 43-year-old woman was held in Kent.
They were all being detained on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, Senior National Co-ordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said an “active plot had been foiled”.
No precise details of targets were given but a source said: “There was serious concern that an attack with unsophisticated weapons was going to be carried out in a crowded place in London.
“Clearly, Westminster was a potential target along with tourist sites, such as Buckingham Palace and Oxford Street.”
In March 2015, Amoudi was arrested in Turkey with two British A-level students over fears they were trying to make their way into Syria to join IS.
The three were arrested on their return to UK and later released without any further action.
Yemen-born Amoudi, who has British citizenship, was studying at Queen Mary’s University of London.
He was said to have been part of a fundamentalist Islamic group called Strivin Muslims, where he met the North London-based schoolboys with whom he allegedly tried to travel to Syria.
Amoudi was a regular worshipper at a small mosque on Willesden High Road.
He is said to have used the name Abu Umar Al-Hadrami on a Twitter account which included critical remarks about “kuffar” — non-believers.
He wrote in one tweet: “I’m a militant Islamist jihadist salafist wahhabist fundamentalist conservative muslim in the eyes of the kuffar.”
Amoudi had been under close surveillance by police and MI5 since last month’s Westminster attacks by Khalid Masood, 52, killed five people.
Undercover cops shadowed Amoudi and stormed a red double decker bus.
Witnesses said he was with a woman in a full burka veil and tried to run away.
Betting shop worker Mica Maitland, 26, said: “The bus pulled up, police got on and dragged her off. She was kicking and screaming and shouting, ‘Don’t touch me’.”
The woman was taken away in a car but not arrested.
