Key questions in probe to unravel mayhem motive

POLICE and MI5 knew the suspect, who had been recently released from jail – and he appears to have been under close surveillance.

From footage and witness accounts he was pursued quickly after stabbing his victims and shot with handguns by plain-clothes officers, who quickly put on their police caps.

It is possible surveillance officers were in pursuit of him and waiting until he was in an uncrowded environment before acting.

Crucially, he attacked in a fairly anonymous South West London street, quite far from highprofile targets like Westminster or London Bridge.

What will emerge in the coming days is why he acted in Streatham. It is possible he had been intending to go elsewhere but decided to strike thinking he had been rumbled.

Officers made a split-second decision to shoot and will face months of investigation and scrutiny, despite having bravely saved countless lives.

The circumstances of the shooting appear to differ from the 2018 arrest of terrorist Khalid Ali in Westminster, just weeks after the multiple death attack on the bridge nearby.

RECORDING

He was under surveillance by a plain-clothes team but was arrested by uniformed officers who took over as he entered the target site.

In this latest incident, having shot, the attacking officers withdrew quickly after spotting the so-called “device” he was wearing.

Questions will be asked as to why the surveillance team were unaware he was wearing a possible suicide vest.

It is entirely possible he lived in a place that was too difficult to get a recording device into and that may explain why the pursuit team was armed.

Surveillance teams are not routinely armed but a big concern for MI5 and police surveillance teams has always been that they may be lured into a place where they could be killed.

The forthcoming investigation will be extremely complex, with questions asked about how people were attacked and what happened in the immediate aftermath.

The priority will now be to find out what the attacker’s intentions were and whether he was part of a wider network.

Whitehall sources say this incident is “likely” to have been inspired by Islamic State. It indicates how Islamist terrorism is likely to be an everpresent virus for some years to come.