Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
U.K. attackers had bombs, sought larger truck
LONDON — British police arrested two more suspects in the London Bridge attack and revealed that the carnage could have been worse had the attackers succeeded in their goal of renting a larger truck, rather than a van, to mow down pedestrians.
The attackers were shot dead before they could make their way back to the van where their petrol bombs were stored.
London’s Metropolitan Police Service said Saturday that authorities had arrested a 27-year-old man and a 28-year-old man overnight in east London on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism. Police have seven people in custody over suspected links to the three attackers who killed eight people on and around London Bridge on June 3.
Police released details of their investigation Saturday as they appealed to the public for information, announcing that Khuram Butt, believed to be the plot’s ringleader, originally tried to rent a 7.5ton box truck. The truck was smaller but similar to the one used last year in an attack that killed 86 people and injured hundreds in the French resort town of Nice.
After his payment was declined, Butt and his two accomplices rented a van that they used to plow into crowds before they leapt from the vehicle and went on a stabbing rampage in an attack that left eight people dead and nearly 50 injured. It was the third deadly attack in Britain in three months.
After leaving the small, white van, the men used 12-inch knives with bright pink blades, according to Dean Haydon, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command.
Police also disclosed that more than a dozen petrol bombs and two blowtorches were discovered in the van, and a copy of the Koran opened at a page “describing martyrdom” was found at one of the attackers’ houses.
Investigators believe that three people were killed on the bridge, including a man who was thrown into the River Thames, before the attackers left the vehicle and stabbed five people to death around London’s busy Borough Market, Haydon said. Police said they believe that Butt was driving the van.
“When I come back to Butt trying to get hold of a 7.5-ton lorry — the effect could have been even worse,” he said.
Haydon said the men may have been prepared for even more bloodshed if they made it back to the van.
Police also found a number of office chairs, gravel and a suitcase in the van.
Detectives believe the gravel may have been placed in the vehicle to make it heavier, or as part of a cover story to justify renting it, while the chairs may have been used to convince family and friends that they were moving furniture.
Butt, a 27-year-old, Pakistan-born British citizen, and his two accomplices, Rachid Redouane, 30, who claimed to be Moroccan-Libyan, and Youssef Zaghba, a 22-year-old Italian national of Moroccan descent, were shot dead by police eight minutes after the first emergency call.
The three attackers were wearing fake suicide belts consisting of plastic water bottles wrapped in gray duct tape.
Haydon described the pink knives as “pretty unusual” and appealed for anyone with information about where they came from to contact police.
Police raided Redouane’s small residence Tuesday and said he had been renting it since April. The residence was the safe house where the attack was planned, police said.
Police said they found in the residence an English-language copy of the Koran opened at a page describing martyrdom, as well as pieces of cloth that appeared to match material wrapped around the petrol bombs and water bottles similar to those used in the fake suicide vests. Luggage straps, plastic retractable craft knives and rolls of duct tape were also found.
The question remains how the men met and knew one another, but police said Saturday that they did not suspect a wider plot.
Separately Saturday, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said the nationalities of the eight victims in the attack tell a proud story of London’s unique makeup.
“It’s desperately sad and poignant, but among those who died is someone who’s British, [and] there are French, Australian, Canadian, Spanish,” Cressida Dick said in an interview.
She said longtime Londoners value this international aspect of the British capital.
“We believe, of course, that that’s what makes our city so great,” she said. “It’s a place where the vast majority of time it’s incredibly integrated and that diversity gives us strength.”