London attacks: Stabbing reports at multiple locations after van rams into people on London Bridge, May calls it a possible terrorist act - UPDATES

RT
Sun, 04 Jun 2017 00:30 UTC

© Hannah McKay / Reuters

Police attend to an incident on London Bridge in London, Britain, June 3, 2017.

London police confirm they are dealing with three "incidents" in the city center on Saturday evening: a vehicle collision with pedestrians on London Bridge, reported stabbings in the Borough Market area and a third incident in Vauxhall.

In an unprecedented move, the Metropolitan police have advised people to "run, hide and tell" on Twitter.

Police cars, ambulances and helicopters have arrived to the London Bridge, according to various eyewitness reports on Twitter.

The Metropolitan Police said they will release further information after making sure it is "accurate," following social media reports that there was an attacker with a knife and gunfire heard in the area.

While no detailed information about the injured was immediately released, RT's Polly Boiko reported from outside University College Hospital that some "victims of gun wounds" were treated by emergency services.

Conflicting accounts claimed that between one and three attackers jumped out of the van after it hit people and proceeded to stab people.

At least five people were injured on the bridge, the BBC reported. It was not immediately clear how grave the injuries were.

Police have confirmed they also "responded to an incident" in the nearby Borough Market after reports suggested there was a knife attack there.

Dramatic footage reportedly taken from inside the London Bridge Bar showed police ordering all the patrons to get on the ground and take cover.

London police then confirmed that a third "incident" was taking place in the Vauxhall area of the city, roughly two miles (3.2km) from Borough Market.

Prime Minister Theresa May has released an official statement to the UK media, calling the "terrible incident" a "potential act of terrorism."

Comment: Updates: Subsequent reports have clarified the situation: three men exited the van and began stabbing people in the nearby Borough Market area. (The Vauxhall area incident turned out to be unrelated.) Police declared it a terrorist incident. Seven dead, 48 injured and hospitalized.

All three attackers were shot dead by police during the confrontation. The attackers had canisters strapped to their bodies, which turned out to be fakes. Onlookers tried to stop the men by throwing glasses, chairs and bottles, to no effect. "They kept coming to try to stab me... they were stabbing everyone. Evil evil, people," said Gerard Vowls, one of the witnesses. More witnesses described the attacks:

Chris, a taxi driver, told LBC that the attackers were wielding "long blades, 12 inches long" and "were stabbing people at random" on London Bridge. He added that he attempted to "ram" one of the assailants with his car, but failed and then saw police officers heading toward the man.

Another eyewitness, identified only as Ben, told BBC Radio 5 that he and his wife saw "a man in red with a large blade, at a guess 10 inches long, stabbing a man about three times" just 15 meters from them. He noted that the victim was "stabbed quite coldly" until he "slumped to the ground" after attempting to confront the attacker.

A chef at a fish restaurant, located at Borough Market, similarly described the attackers he saw as "two men with big knives." All the appeals to the attackers to stop the carnage and attempts by the restaurant staff to intervene by throwing chairs were in vain, he said.

For videos and reactions, see here and here.

Police have already made 12 arrests in connection with the attacks, adding that some of their own are among the injured. Police say the investigation is progressing "rapidly". PM May added the following:

"This is, as we all know, the third terrorist attack Britain has experienced in the last 3 months. In March, a similar attack took place, just around the corner on Westminster Bridge," May said in a statement published on Facebook.
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May also confirmed that British Intelligence and police have disrupted five credible terrorist plots since the Westminster attack in March.

She also stated that the recent attacks are not directly connected but are instead part of a new emerging trend in global terrorism with copycat attackers employing "the crudest means of attack"as opposed to "carefully-constructed plots after years of planning and training."

She also decried the lackluster response to the threat posed by such terrorist acts, citing "far too much tolerance of extremism" in the UK.

"But it is time to say enough is enough... But when it comes to taking on extremism and terrorism, things need to change," May concluded.

The whole attack was over in about 8 minutes. RT gives a summary:

Eyewitnesses said that the three assailants were driving over London Bridge in a nondescript Hertz rental van, when they accelerated to "about 50mph," according to Holly Jones, a BBC journalist, caught in the attack.

"We thought it was a car accident but as we got closer we could see a lot of blood and bodies. There was a pregnant woman on the right who was severely injured and on the left there was a man being resuscitated, but he started breathing. We don't know whether the woman survived," one witness told the Guardian.

One more witness identified as Eric Siguenza told the BBC that three men "jumped out of the van and that's when they started attacking people on the road."

"As they headed down the stairs, as they were running towards the people, they were shouting, 'This is for Allah,'" he said.

They were just yards from Borough Market, a popular nightspot. It was just after 10pm, minutes after the Champions League Final wrapped up in Cardiff, and the streets were full of revelers.

The violence occurred in full view of hundreds of onlookers.

"I saw a man in red with quite a large blade, I don't know the measurement, I guess maybe 10 inches. He was stabbing a man... he stabbed him about three times fairly calmly," an eyewitness, who identified himself as Ben, told The Telegraph."It looked like the man had maybe been trying to intervene but there wasn't much that he could do, he was being stabbed quite coldly and he slumped to the ground."

"They stabbed this girl maybe 10 times, 15 times. She was going, 'Help me, help me,'" an eyewitness named Gerard told the BBC, saying that he lobbed a bottle at the assailants to try to scare them off.

Many sought refuge in the cafes in the market square. But safety was temporary, as the attackers went inside the cafes, stabbing indiscriminately.

"He stabbed her in the neck," eyewitness Elsbeth Smedley told CNN, recounting an attack on a waitress. "He stabbed another man in the back, and then he ran out of the restaurant."

Police said that they received the first call about the attack at 10:08pm. An armed unit was dispatched immediately. Eyewitnesses described a cacophony of gunfire. Within eight minutes, the three stabbers were dead. The canisters the terrorists had strapped to their bodies were crude fakes.

Louise Mench continues her public descent into paranoid schizophrenia (someone stage an intervention for this woman!):

Trump retweeted a Drudge Report tweet saying, "Fears of new terror attack after van 'mows down 20 people' on London Bridge..." Looks like Drudge and Trump got the scoop on NBC, who then tweeted:

Iran has responded correctly:

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi called on certain states to stop "pursuing their short-term political and economic goals, which seem to be strategic, in favor of security for their citizens as well as the entire world."

"To uproot terror, it is necessary that they [those states] address the root causes as well as main financial and ideological sources of extremism and violence, which are clear to everyone," Press TV quoted the spokesman as saying.

The sole way to end global terrorism, according to Qassemi, is "to play an honest and responsible part in the global wave against terrorism and extremism free from any double standard."

Update (June 5): London attack coverage on SOTT from the weekend:

• Fake news site CNN caught using actors to stage "Muslim outrage" after London Bridge attacks
• Islamic State claims responsibility for London Bridge terror attack
• Scotland Yard: Police arrest 12 people in London anti-terrorism raids, deploy armed street patrols
• London terror attacks: Why we need to talk about Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism
• Here's why the terror attacks on London will not affect the outcome of the British election

It's still unclear how many of the injured were stabbed or hit by the rented van. Media are citing eyewitnesses saying 5 or 6 were hit by the van, implying that the vast majority of victims were stabbed. The first police officer (a British Transport Police officer) to confront the gullible losers was armed only with a baton, and suffered multiple stab wounds. Once armed police arrived, the reportedly fired an "unprecedented" 50 rounds during the confrontation that saw the three attackers shot dead. The one civilian hit by fire from police was an American, hit in the head by a stray bullet. Authorities say their life is not in danger.

PM May says the losers' identities are known, but won't be released just yet. Police have made multiple more arrests in the days since the attack. Four addresses were raided on Sunday, including the home of one of the attackers. One of them was allegedly reported to police twice for his extremist views. Despite police holding back the identities, media are reporting on one of them. The alleged lead loser (aka ringleader) "Abz" is reported to have thrown a "going away" barbecue for his neighbors a week before the rampage. Neighbors say he was a nice guy who bought ice cream for kids and helped with shopping.

"Abz", third from left, back row.

"Abz" was a ex KF and London Tube employee who had posed with a jihadi flag in a Channel 4 documentary, The Jihadis Next Door. He was thrown out of a mosque and had tried to radicalize kids in a local park in the years before the attack:

A former friend of the Watford-born married father-of-two has revealed he contacted police about the terror thug's extremist views, and claims he was radicalised after watching twisted YouTube videos. The unnamed man said he contacted cops in Barking, east London, after the maniac killer discussed ISIS-inspired terror attacks.

He told BBC's Asian Network that the jihadi had become brainwashed after watching clips of US hate preacher Ahmad Musa Jibril. He said: "He used to listen to a lot of Musa Jibril. I have heard some of this stuff and it's very radical. I am surprised this stuff is still on YouTube and is easily accessible. I phoned the anti-terror hotline. I spoke to the gentleman. I told him about our conversation and why I think he was radicalised."

After confirming Abz was allowed to keep his passport and was not arrested, he added: "I did my bit, I know a lot of other people did their bit, but the authorities did not do their bit."

Another neighbour Erica Gasparri also said she shopped the terrorist to police in Barking when he tried to "brainwash" her children.

The Italian mum-of-three sensationally revealed that two of her kids came home from the local park and said: "Mummy I want to become a Muslim," reports the Telegraph. She said: "He was trying to radicalise the children, he would go down to the park and talk to them about Islam. He also came to the houses and gave the kids money and sweets during Ramadan."

A photographer captured a detective carrying notes yesterday which appeared to suggest a man in the investigation had been quizzed by police last year - while the name of the person has not been revealed, it is thought to be one of the three men who carried out Saturday's terror attack.

He was part of a group reported for demonstrating in Regent's Park, central London. A source said: "After that the word went around that he was someone to be avoided at all costs. With every passing day he began to look more and more like a terrorist."

Other residents in Barking who knew the warped thug described him as a family man who held the door open for old ladies and played with local children. But one neighbour said he constantly changed his facial appearance and "always looked different," reports the Mail Online.
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The wife of the killer, who was of Pakistani origin, had just given birth to their second child, neighbours in Barking revealed. The couple are believed to have been living with his mum — enjoying a comfortable lifestyle boosted by state handouts.

The beast was thrown out of his local mosque in 2015 after he interrupted a sermon to shout that voting in a general election was "un-Islamic." A source said: "He had no special friends there. He would arrive, pray and then leave. He seemed an uneducated person who had no knowledge of religion."
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Ikenna Chigbo recognised the killer's old Arsenal shirt in an image of the shot terrorists. He said: "He was wearing the same top yesterday. He was saying to me, 'Oh, where can I get a van from?' He was just asking me all the details — how much was it, and just like asking where he could get a van, basically."

Another neighbour, Furqan Nabi, 35, said: "Abz came from a Pakistani family but was brought up in this country from a very young age. He seemed like a totally normal, nice guy. I can't believe what has happened."

The accountant also told how the extremist asked about hiring a van. He said: "He was a bit vague about why he wanted it.

In addition to one of the attackers having been previously been reported to police, there's this:

Counter-terrorism officers secretly recorded an alleged Isil-inspired terror cell in Barking last month discussing how to use YouTube to plot a van and knife attack in London, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

The investigators were monitoring the alleged extremist cell in the east London borough weeks before Saturday night's attack in the capital ...

On Sunday police arrested 12 people, among them seven women - all of them in Barking and other parts of east London, where at least one of Saturday's killers was believed to have lived. Those arrested were aged from 19 to 60.
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One of the terrorists reportedly shouted "this is for my family, this is for Islam" as he plunged a knife into a 23-year-old victim who is now in hospital. In the recent surveillance operation in Barking last month one suspected jihadist discussed what appears to be an identical plot.

The Daily Telegraph has discovered that one alleged suspect said the intended method was to "use a car as a weapon" and boasted that he had radicalised more than a dozen "students" in Barking "wanting to martyr themselves".

He said the plot would involve driving at pedestrians and then getting out of the vehicle to attack others. He added: "YouTube videos all make it properly easy to do." One of the plotters talked about "getting an automatic [vehicle] so the boys can drive it".
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The men under surveillance are also said to have talked about attacking a bridge - in their case Westminster Bridge - and going to the gym to make their arms more powerful and therefore more lethal when using knives. Neighbours said the London Bridge attack suspect was a keen gym user.

Update: Two of the three Evil Losers have been identified: Khuram Shazad Butt (the man pictured above in the Channel 4 documentary, and below) and Rachid Redouane, both from Barking, London - thought no "formal identification" has yet been carried out. Butt, 27, was a British citizen from Pakistan. Redouane, 30, was either Libyan or Moroccan.

© Lou Pickett / YouTube

Khuram Shazad Butt appeared in a Channel 4 documentary that aired in January, 2016

"I would urge anyone with information about these men, their movements in the days and hours before the attack and the places they frequented to come forward," Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said.

Butt was known to police and domestic intelligence agency MI5, Redouane was not.

"However, there was no intelligence to suggest that this attack was being planned," the statement said.

Update (June 6): The third gullible loser has been identified as Youssef Zaghba, 22, a Moroccan-Italian who'd been living in London. Like Butt, he was previously known to authorities, having been arrested last year trying to reach Syria to fight in the loser-jihad. When caught in Bologna, he told the Italian police he was "going to be a terrorist". This information was passed to British authorities, and yet, this loser was not a "police of MI5 subject of interest", according to Metropolitan Police.

Italian police seized his phone and several SIM cards but did not arrest him because he had not committed a crime. They reported him to the authorities in Bologna, which began proceedings against him for terrorism offences.

In April 2016, a tribunal canceled the order under which Zaghba's phone had been seized and denied permission for police to retain a copy of his contacts.

After the airport stop, Italy's Internal Intelligence Service passed on details to the liaison officer for the UK's foreign security agency MI6 in Italy, who reportedly passed the information on to MI5, the Politico source said.

The alert to British authorities was a routine communication about a potential suspect, rather than an emergency red flag.

His name was also added to the police in Bologna to the Schengen Information System - an EU security database - but was still able to travel to the UK.

One of the others, Redouane, apparently visited his estranged wife and daughter just hours before the attack to say goodbye:

Pals said Redouane arrived at the social housing block shortly after Charisse, 38, returned from a barbecue at a friend's house. The jihadist, believed to have been radicalised on a trip back to Morocco, signed into the visitor's register at reception shortly before 7pm. Three hours later, at 10.08pm, the pastry chef and two other maniacs launched the worst terror attack to hit London since 7/7.

One mum who lives at the complex in Barking, East London, said: "One of my friends lives on the third floor and she told she me he came to say his last goodbye."
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Sources told The Sun the couple split in January after a series of rows over his strict beliefs. They said she had become sick of his Islamist and homophobic views.

Charisse told a friend: "He was always really selfish and I gave up so much for him. I was never going to convert and become a Muslim. There's no way I was going to do that. I just didn't agree with what he wanted. He didn't want Amina to eat pork or go to dance classes and I wasn't having that. He didn't want her watching things on TV either in case it made her 'gay'."

Curiously there's a connection between Butt and the alleged 7/7 bombers:

Pakistani-born Butt had links to a key contact of Mohammed Siddique Khan, the eldest of four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in an attack on three London tube trains and one bus in 2005, and Anjem Choudary, Europe's most notorious hate preacher, The Times reports.

According to the newspaper, Butt worked at an all-Muslim gym in East London run by Sajeel Shahid, 41, a member of Choudary's network who allegedly helped to set up weapons training in Pakistan for the 2005 bombers.

The pair were "close friends," the newspaper reports.

Butt would help run high-octane mixed martial arts classes, and would allegedly use the gym to approach young pupils for radicalization.