Terrorists killed seven people and injured 48 more on London Bridge and Borough Market in London on Saturday night. 35 of the injured remain in hospitals around the area.
Police have also made 12 quick arrests in east London in connection with the terrorist attack.
This is what we know so far about the attack.
From The Financial Times:
● At 10.08pm on Saturday the Metropolitan Police received reports that a vehicle had struck pedestrians on London Bridge. A white van with Hertz markings then continued to drive to nearby Borough Market, a popular bar and restaurant area.● Three men armed with knives left the vehicle and stabbed a number of people. Armed officers confronted the men, who were wearing what looked like explosive vests but were later established to be hoaxes. All three were shot dead in Borough Market within eight minutes of the first call.● Seven people have been confirmed dead and at least 48 wounded have been taken to five hospitals across London. NHS England says that 21 people are in a critical condition.● Eight armed police officers fired around 50 rounds during the attack. One member of the public sustained a gun shot wound, the police said, but the injuries are not critical in nature.
Prime Minister Theresa May delivered a statement, in which she declared that “things need to change” and enough is enough. From The Evening Standard:
She said: “As terrorism breeds terrorism and perpetrators are inspired to attack, not only on the basis of carefully constructed plots after years of planning and training, and not even as lone attackers radicalised online, but by copying one another and often using the crudest of means of attack.”She announced more needed to be done to clampdown on extremist “safe spaces” both online and in Britain’s communities.Mrs May also claimed there was “far too much tolerance of extremism in our country” and called for it to be tackled head on, while reviewing the country’s counter-terrorism strategy to combat the changing threat.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn used the attack to attack May. From The Independent:
Pointing the finger again at Ms May’s record, Mr Corbyn said the “difficult conversations” suggested by the Prime Minister in her Downing Street speech on Sunday morning should start “with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have funded and fuelled extremist ideology”.“Our priority must be public safety and I will take whatever action is necessary and effective to protect the security of our people and our country,” Mr Corbyn told his audience.“That includes full authority for the police to use whatever force is necessary to protect and save life as they did last night, as they did in Westminster in March.“You cannot protect the public on the cheap. The police and security services must get the resources they need, not 20,000 police cuts.
This is a completely different view than the one Corbyn has carried for awhile. For years Corbyn has been against the “shoot to kill” policy, which is what police used on Saturday to kill the terrorists.
The Metropolitan Police have “opened a casualty bureau for those concerned about family and friends who might have been caught up in the attacks.” They have also asked that anyone with videos or photos to hand it over to the police. Assistant commissioner Mark Rowley promised to amp up the police presence across the capitol “in the coming days.”
The police arrested 12 people in Barking, located in east London, after they raided “a flat belonging to one of the three attackers.” From the BBC:
According to neighbours, the dead attacker lived there for about three years and was married with two children.One man, who did not want to be named, said one of the attackers had become more extreme over the past two years.”We spoke about a particular attack that happened and like most radicals he had a justification for anything – everything and anything.”And that day I realised that I need to contact the authorities,” he said.He said no action was taken.”I did my bit… but the authorities didn’t do their bit,” he said.
Market analyst Ken Chigbo, 26, described one of the attackers as “very sociable, a friendly guy.” The man even invited Chigbo to a BBQ last week, which he attended. Chigbo said he had a lot of fun at it. He even spoke to the man on Saturday. From The Guardian:
“I am moving and he was very interested in that and wished me well … He was particularly interested in the van I hired, where I got it from and if it was an automatic … It’s very strange to think about that conversation considering what happened just a few hours later.”
Others have said that a local mosque kicked him out. The Guardian continued:
Other neighbours said the man had been ejected from a local mosque after questioning an imam during a sermon about people “using their vote wisely” in the run-up to the 2015 general election. A spokesman for the Jabir bin Zayd Islamic centre, which neighbours said was one of two mosques the suspected attacker had attended, confirmed that incident had happened but said the man involved was not a regular and was not known to them.
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