he Sudanese immigrant accused of trying to kill pedestrians in Parliament Square hails from a Midlands suburb considered a terror hotspot because of the extraordinary number of jihadis who have lived there.
Salih Khater, 29, a British citizen who moved to the UK from Sudan five years ago, lived in a flat in Sparkhill, an area of south Birmingham home to one in 10 UK extremists jailed over Islamic terrorist plots.
His council flat is also just ten minutes from the former home of Khalid Masood, whose murderous rampage 17 months ago appears to have inspired Khater's own carborne attack yesterday.
Last year it was reported that one in ten convicted Islamic terrorists come from the tiny area of Birmingham, south-east of the city centre.
Most recently a group of extremists from the area who called themselves the 'Three Musketeers' were jailed for life last year.
Sparkhill neighbours Naweed Ali, 29, Khobaib Hussain, 25 and Mohibur Rahman, 33, planned to launch murder on Britain's streets using a car before attacking people with meat cleavers etched with 'Kafir' and setting off a pipe bomb.
Belgian jihadi Mohamed Abrini, better known as the 'man in the hat', collected £3,000 to fund his terrorism during a secret handover in Sparkhill's nearest park months before masterminding terror attacks in Paris and Brussels in 2015.
Khater (left) lived close to the home of Khalid Masood (right), who ploughed a car into crowds on Westminster Bridge in March 2017, before abandoning his vehicle then stabbing and killing unarmed PC Keith Palmer
Abrini later became one of the world's most wanted men after 130 people died in ISIS attacks on Paris in 2015 - and was arrested after he accompanied suicide bombers into Brussels Airport where 33 died but he fled.
'Man in the hat' Mohamed Abrini collected cash from a terror suspect in Birmingham before the Paris and Brussels terror attacks
And last year a British-based imam accused of recruiting Jihadists to fight for ISIS is being extradited to Spain to face terror charges.
Tarik Chadlioui, 43, allegedly tried to recruit and radicalise fighters for ISIS as part of a terror cell from his home in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham.
Sparkbrook contains five highly concentrated Muslim council wards, occupying a few square miles, which have produced 26 of the country's 269 known jihadis, according to analysis of terrorism in the UK last year.
The Birmingham wards of Springfield, Sparkhill, Hall Green and Hodge Hill in particular have been home to a high proportion of convicted terrorists.
It was one of the main conclusions of a 1,000-page report to be published by think tank the Henry Jackson society in Parliament in March last year.
The overall number of Islamic terrorists revealed to have had a Birmingham address down the years is even higher: 39 in total. This figure is more than for the whole of West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire put together.
Friends say Khater, who is refusing to speak to police, was last seen on the day before the attack at the Bunna Internet cafe below his old Sparkbrook flat, where police took away a PC last night.
The terror suspect had recently moved to a tower block behind Birmingham's central mosque, and his tenth floor council flat was also stormed by counter-terrorism officers yesterday and remains sealed off today.
Counter-terrorism officers also raided a Nottingham property believed to have links to the Ford Fiesta bought two months ago.
Today Khater is in a south London police station after veered off the road careering into pedestrians and cyclists on Parliament Square, after spending the night cruising around in a Ford Fiesta bought two months ago.
Police say he drove 115 miles to London late on Monday night and toured the Tottenham Court Road area between 1.25am and 5.55am before heading to Westminster and Whitehall at 6am and circled until he struck at just after 7.30am yesterday.
This stalking of London streets will raise suspicions that he was looking for crowds and later plumped for Westminster, where British extremist Masood killed six in March 2017.
Sparkhill terror gang Naweed Ali, 29, Mohibur Rahman, 33, and Khobaib Hussain, 25, (left to right) were jailed for life last year over a plot to kill people with a car, knives and a bomb
Imam Tarik Chadlioui, 43, (pictured) allegedly tried to recruit and radicalise fighters for ISIS as part of a terror cell from his home in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham.
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