Enough is enough: May
Attackers drive van into crowd, stab revellers • Police kill all three assailants
london — Three attackers drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing revellers nearby on Saturday night, killing seven people in what Britain called the work of militants engaged in a new trend of terrorism.
Metropolitan Police said on Sunday 12 people had been arrested in the Barking district of east London in connection with the attack, which also injured at least 48 people, and raids were continuing there.
The attack occurred five days ahead of a parliamentary election and was the third to hit Britain in less than three months. Prime Minister Theresa May said the election would go ahead as planned on Thursday.
“It is time to say enough is enough,” she said in a televised statement outside her Downing Street office, where flags few at half-mast.
“We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are,” May said, calling for a strengthened counter-terrorism strategy that could include longer jail sentences for some offences and new cyberspace regulations.
Less than two weeks ago, a suicide bomber killed 22 children and adults at a concert by US singer Ariana Grande in Manchester in northern England.
On Saturday night, police shot dead the three male assailants in the Borough Market area near London Bridge within eight minutes of receiving the first emergency call shortly after 10pm local time.
Eyewitnesses described harrowing scenes as the attackers’ van veered on and off the bridge sidewalk, hitting people along the way, and the three men then ran into an area packed with restaurants, stabbing people indiscriminately.
Accounts emerged of people trying to barricade themselves in a pub while others tried throwing tables and other objects to fend off the attackers.
Police raided a building in the Barking district of east London on Sunday. Sky News reported it was the address of one of the attackers and a witness told the TV channel that residents had heard controlled explosions early in the morning.
“We believe we are experiencing a new trend in the threat we face as terrorism breeds terrorism,” May said. “Perpetrators are inspired to attack not only on the basis of carefully constructed plots ... and not even as lone attackers radicalised online, but by copying one another and often using the crudest of means of attack.”
She said the series of attacks were not connected in terms of planning and execution, but were inspired by what she called a “single, evil ideology of extremism” that represented a perversion of Islam and of the truth. She said this ideology had to be confronted both abroad and at home.
“While we have made significant progress in recent years, there is — to be frank — far too much tolerance of extremism in our country,” she said, without elaborating.
Most of the main political parties suspended national campaigning on Sunday, but May said campaigning would resume on Monday. The anti-European Union UK Independence Party said it would not suspend campaigning because disrupting democracy was what the extremists wanted.
London Bridge is a major transport hub and nearby Borough Market is a fashionable warren of alleyways packed with bars and restaurants that is always bustling on a Saturday night.
The area remained cordoned off and patrolled by armed police and counter-terrorism officers on Sunday, with train stations closed. Forensic investigators could be seen working on the bridge, where buses and taxis stood abandoned. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. —