By Valeria Bula
Shock waves were sent although London as the third terrorist attack of the year took place on the night of Saturday, June 3rd.
In the style of the Nice attack in France almost a year ago, the perpetrator of Saturday night’s carnage plowed his vehicles through a crowd of pedestrians on London Bridge, afterwards, three men got out of the van and carried out a multiple stabbing at the nearby Borough Market. The attacks resulted in the killing of 7 and injuring of 48.
Police officers rushed to the scene at Borough market where three suspects were ultimately shot dead within eight minutes of the first emergency call. The suspects were then found to have been wearing fake suicide vests.
Holly Jones, BBC reporter, who was on the bridge, said the van was “probably traveling at about 50 miles an hour” and hit “five or six people”.
According to another witness, Eric, the men inside jumped out once the van crashed and “ran towards the people that they nearly ran over”.
“[Then] they literally just started kicking them, punching them, they took out knives… it was a rampage really,” he said.
One man, Gerard, told the BBC he saw a woman being stabbed “10 or 15 times” by men shouting “This is for Allah”.
These attacks are the third to occur this year in the British capital, after a similar attack unfolded on Westminster Bridge in March, where a man drove his cars into pedestrians along with a stabbing, killing 5, and two weeks after the bomb attack in Manchester during an Ariana Grande concert which killed 22 people.
On Sunday, June 4, 2017, the ISIS linked Amaq Agency released a statement claiming a “detachment of Islamic State fighters” perpetrated the attack. However, CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank says to approach the issue with a caveat, for ISIS has provided no evidence to support the claim.
After the terror attacks, 12 people were arrested in Barking, East London, following a raid in the home of one of the three attackers. Of those 12 arrested, seven were women. One suspect was later released under no charges.
“The situation these officers were confronted with was critical, a matter of life and death – three armed men wearing what appeared to be suicide belts,” said Assistant Commissioner, Mark Rowley. The belts were later found to have been hoaxes.
By Tuesday, June 6, the three attackers have been identified as Youssef Zaghba, 22, Khuram Butt, 27, and Rachid Redouane, 30.
