Knife maniacs screamed: this is for Allah
LONDON Bridge was teeming with Saturday night revellers when the fanatical trio veered on to the pavement in their rented Hertz van.
A pregnant woman was among the first victims as they swerved across the bridge at 50mph, ploughing into pedestrians.
Holly Jones, a BBC reporter, said the maniacs’ route made an Sshape, narrowly missing her but smashing into two people in front of her and then three behind.
Ian Houghton, 55, a Sunday Times journalist, said: ‘People were screaming and leaping out of the way. There was debris flying everywhere, bits of the car and people’s possessions. He was coming right at me, so I jumped into the middle of the road.’
At the southern end of London Bridge, the killers crashed the van before leaping out to begin their knife rampage. They left a trail of broken bodies in pools of blood. One witness said: ‘There was a pregnant woman severely injured and a man being resuscitated.’
People on the bridge had thought the attackers were jumping from their van to help – until they began stabbing bystanders as they moved towards Borough Market.
One killer leapt down from Borough High Street on to the canopy of the basement-level Boro Bistro.
Manager Vincent Le Berre said: ‘I found myself face to face with the terrorist. I saw the hatred in his eyes. I managed to escape but my friend Alexandre wasn’t so lucky. He was stabbed in the neck.’
In a distressing scene caught on a mobile phone, a sobbing woman begged her loved-one to hold on as rescuers fought to save him, pleading: ‘Stay with me, please, I love you. Come on darling, you can do it. Oh my God, I love you, you can do it. Come on, please. Don’t let those f****** get away with it.’
Local resident Alex Saint James came across a man weeping hysterically over a lifeless companion.
‘There were shrieks, non- stop screaming and crying,’ he said. ‘People were lying unconscious, but some were likely to have been dead, really heavily bleeding. It was horrendous.’ Many fled, but several stayed to help another victim as a woman screamed: ‘Call an ambulance!’ A hundred yards away, the jihadis were wreaking terror in the packed bars around Borough Market, slitting throats and shrieking: ‘This is for Allah.’ One taxi driver said: ‘ One of the men had a long knife. He was very tall, about 6ft 3in, and he stabbed a young woman through the chest and was slashing at others.’
In The Mudlark pub, Jeff Whitsey, 54, said a girl in her twenties staggered in with a slashed throat, adding: ‘It was a very deep cut. There was blood everywhere. She was with her friends. Blood was
spurting out. It was awful, absolutely awful.’
A quick-thinking taxi driver called Chris tried to run over the killers in a desperate attempt to halt the atrocity. He said: ‘Three men got out of the van with blades 12in long, and went along Borough High Street stabbing people at random.
‘I saw a young girl stabbed in the chest. I said to the guy in my cab I was going to try and hit him. I spun the cab round, I was about to ram one, but he side-stepped me.’
An off- duty policeman tackled the jihadi knifemen with his bare hands. The constable, who plays rugby, was left with serious knife wounds. Another officer, who only joined British Transport Police two years ago, took them on outside London Bridge station with his baton, and was stabbed in the face, head and leg.
His Chief Constable Paul Crowther praised the officer’s ‘enormous courage in the face of danger’ after visiting him in hospital. Two other police were also injured.
The three attackers, wearing fake suicide vests, walked into the heart of Borough Market randomly slashing at revellers with their hunting knives. A brave Romanian chef, Florin Morariu, said he hurled a crate that struck one of the attackers on the head.
In The Globe pub, Lewis Bennett, 39, said everyone gasped when one of the maniacs pushed in, dressed in a black robe with a curved knife in his belt. ‘He didn’t do anything at first, just stood still for about ten seconds,’ said Mr Bennett. ‘But then he grabbed the knife and stabbed people closest to him.
‘He stabbed people in the stomach and legs, I think about five or six people. He was shouting “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar” [‘God is great’ in Arabic] and he had a British accent. Blood was dripping from his blade.’ Outside the nearby
Southwark Tavern, more people were being knifed. A witness called Ben said: ‘I saw a man in red with a large blade stabbing a man about three times.
‘He was being stabbed quite coldly and he slumped to the ground.’
Another victim was slashed in the face. One of the jihadis told 23-year- old Daniel O’Neill: ‘This is for Islam’, before sticking a knife in him.
Journalist Geoff Ho was stabbed in the neck as he stepped in to break up what he thought was a fight.
Rhiannon Jones, 19, a student nurse at King’s College London, said: ‘A taxi driver swerved past me and shouted “You need to run, you need to run now. He has as knife!”.
‘I saw him running towards where I was, he had a knife - about 12in, like a machete. I just ran.’
By now, armed police were hunting the gang. In Katzenjammers, a Bavarian restaurant next to the Southwark Tavern, there was pandemonium as officers swarmed in screaming at everyone to get down on the floor immediately.
Graphic designer Alastair Milne, 35, said: ‘One man came down who had been slashed across the face. I tried to help him, I tried to get something to stem the flow of blood, but he was in a bad way. It was terrifying.’
In Elliot’s restaurant, waitress Candice Hedge had just finished her shift and was relaxing at the bar with her boyfriend when the knifemen marched in. They stabbed the 31-year-old Australian in the throat. Clutching her bleeding neck, she stumbled around before falling into a coma.
Last night she was recovering in hospital, and even wrote on Facebook: ‘Bit of pain, but I will survive.’
As the murder spree unfolded, ordinary citizens showed exceptionally bravery.
Gerard Vowls, 47, a Crossrail worker, followed the trio, pelting them with bottles and chairs and yelling warnings to diners and drinkers.
Having witnessed them knock a woman off a bike – and knifing her while howling ‘This is for Allah’ – he chased them while hurling anything to hand in their direction.
‘I picked up bottles, pint glasses and stools,’ he said. ‘I was chucking everything at them, and shouting to warn people. I am not a hero, just a normal guy.’
Mr Vowls watched helplessly as they entered the Black & Blue steak restaurant.
A diner named Emma said: ‘They came in and walked around the restaurant, I guess they just stabbed anybody that they saw and knocked things on the ground.
‘They stabbed someone in the face and someone in the stomach.’ Her friend Jamie added: ‘We ran into the kitchen where there was a bunch of other people. A guy had been stabbed and he was cut and he was bleeding