London attackers hoped for a bigger truck
Gang was shot before using stored Molotov cocktails
LONDON — The carnage of the June 3 London Bridge attack could have been worse: One of the attackers tried to rent a larger truck that could have killed more people, but his payment was declined. The gang was also shot dead before they could make their way back to the van where their Molotov cocktails were stored.
In a glimpse into the investigation, police released details today that showed Khuram Butt originally tried to rent a 7.5-ton truck. The truck they intended to use was smaller but similar to the one used in the Nice attack last year that killed 86 people and injured hundreds in the resort town in the south of France.
After his payment was declined, Butt and his two accomplices rented a smaller van that they used to plow into crowds before they leaped from the vehicle and went on a stabbing rampage in an attack that left eight people dead — including Christine Archibald, 30, of Castlegar — and nearly 50 people injured. It was the third such 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 CounterTerrorism Command.
Police also disclosed that multiple Molotov cocktails were discovered in the van, and a copy of the Qur’an opened at a page “describing martyrdom” was found at one of the attackers’ houses.
Investigators believe three victims were killed on the bridge, including one man who was thrown into the Thames River, before the attackers left the vehicle and stabbed five people to death around London’s busy Borough Market, Haydon said. Police believe Butt was driving the van.
“When I come back to Butt trying getting hold of a 7.5 ton lorry — the effect could have been even worse,” he said.
More than a dozen wine bottles filled with flammable liquid and rags wrapped around them in the shape of Molotov cocktails were found in the van. Two blow torches were also found.
Haydon said the men might have been planning more bloodshed if they had survived their stabbing spree and 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 might have been placed in the vehicle to make it heavier, or as part of a cover to justify hiring it, while the chairs may have been used to convince family and friends they were moving furniture.
Butt, a 27-year-old Pakistanborn British citizen, and his two accomplices, Rachid Redouane, 30, who claimed to be MoroccanLibyan, 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 grey 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 on Tuesday and said he had been renting it since April.
This was the house where the attack was planned, police said. In the residence, police found an English-language copy of the Qur’an opened at a page describing martyrdom.