'Major Incident' Declared After Car Crashed Into London Police Station

A major incident has been declared and a police station in north London, United Kingdom, evacuated after a car crashed into the entrance to a police station and a fire was started.

The incident, which took place in Edmonton on the northern outskirts of the city, has been declared a "major incident" according to local MP Kate Osamor.

A car "collided with the station office" at around 7pm local time (2pm ET), a police statement said and a man has been detained. "The vehicle remains at the scene," the statement read. "Specialist officers are in attendance while it is examined. At this stage we have not been informed of any injuries.

"London Ambulance Service and London Fire Brigade are present. The police station has been evacuated and a large police cordon is in place."

There are a number of different videos of the incident, showing a man getting out of the car after crashing into the police station, pouring a substance onto the road before setting it alight as a police vehicle arrives. An unidentified person is reported to have tackled the man before officers arrived but this has not been verified. A number of officers then restrain him on the floor.

Inquiries are ongoing and it is unclear what charges are being brought against the suspect. It is not known if this is being treated as a terror incident.

The U.K.'s terror threat level had been raised and means an attack is "highly likely" following incidents in Austria and France, British officials have said.

Home Secretary Priti Patel had said the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre changed the terror threat level from "substantial" to "severe" amid concerns of follow-on attacks to ones seen across Europe.

"We face a real and serious threat in the U.K. from terrorism," Patel said. "I would ask the public to remain vigilant and to report any suspicious activity to the police."

Four people were killed and 23 others injured after a suspected terror attack in the Austrian capital Vienna. Gunmen armed with knives and rifles opened fire in the city center at six different locations, including one near a synagogue.

Three people died after a knife attack in Nice while teacher Samuel Paty was murdered in Paris in October. Experts have told Newsweek that more terror attacks were "inevitable" after the attacks in France further inflamed tensions between the country and Muslim communities.

The terror threat level had been at "substantial" in the U.K. since November last year when it was lowered from "severe" for the first time in five years. The "severe" level is the second-highest, with only "critical" above it - which was reached in May 2017 after the bombing at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena.

Elsewhere in Europe, France has suffered a spate of Islamist militant attacks recently, involving "lone wolf" jihadists. French history teacher Paty was beheaded outside a school in a suburb of Paris by a Chechen youth, who was then shot dead by police. As the French government launched new measures to tackle militant Islam, a Tunisian man fatally stabbed three people in a cathedral in Nice.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe must not "give up" in the face of attacks as leaders strongly condemned the Vienna shooting. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was "deeply shocked by the terrible attacks". Patel earlier said the U.K. would "stand ready to support in any way we can".

This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.