LondonLondon attack attack putshas UK UK ‘at ‘at war’ war’ with with terroriststerrorists

United Kingdom security officials said Britain is now "at war" following Saturday night's terror attack on Lon-don Bridge, and said intelli-gence gathering on Islamic extremists must be improved.

All main parties resumed campaigning for Thursday's general election on Monday and many commentators said it was unlikely the attack would affect the result, as many people had made up their minds already

"Make no mistake, we are now at war, and the way we handle intelligence has to change," a senior government official told China Daily "Brit-ain now faces two kinds of attack by these people — the carefully planned attack such as the Manchester suicide bombing, and those using vehicles and knives, which would appear to be more spontaneous?'

China strongly condemned the terror attack in London and expressed condolences and sympathy to the victims' fami-lies and to the injured, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday.

"China is firmly opposed to any kind of terrorism and is willing to strengthen coop-eration with the international community, including the UK, to jointly fight against terror-ism and maintain world peace and security" she said.

Hua said there were no reports of Chinese casualties in the London attack, and the Chinese embassy in the UK has released alerts to Chinese citi-zens there to be vigilant.

Police on Monday named two of the attackers and said they were trying to identify the third. One, 27-year-old Khuram Shazad Butt, was a British citi-zen born in Pakistan who had already been investigated by police and Britain's domestic spy agency MIS.

"However, there was no intelligence to suggest that this attack was being planned, and the investigation had been prioritized accordingly" police said.

Another attacker, 30-year-old Rachid Redouane, went by the alias Rachid Elkhdar and claimed to be Moroccan or Libyan, police said. He and Butt lived in the same area of east London.

One of Butt's neigh-bors, Ikenna Chigbo, told Reuters he had chatted with Butt — also known as "Abe — just hours before the attack on Saturday and said he appeared "almost euphoric".

Another neighbor, Michael Mimbo, told Reuters that Butt supported the north London football team Arse-nal One of the dead attackers has been pictured wearing an Arsenal shirt.

Prime Minister Theresa May described the latest inci-dent as an attack on the free world".

But with Britons due to vote in a national election on Thursday, her decision to reduce the number of police officers in England and Wales by almost 20,000 during her six years as interior minister from 2010 to 2016 shot to the top of the political agenda

May did not answer repeated questions from reporters on her cuts, but said counterterrorism budgets had been protected, and police had the powers they needed.

Police said they had to prioritize resources on suspects who were believed to be preparing an attack or providing active support for one. Butt did not fall into this category when they last investigated him.

“It’s just a fact that, over the last seven years, we as a city have lost 600 million pounds from our budgets. We have had to close police stations, sell police buildings, and we’ve lost thousands of police staff,” said London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a member of the opposition Labour Party.

May’s main opponent, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, backed calls for her resignation over the police cuts.

Police said on Monday they had released all 12 people arrested in the neighborhood on Sunday without charge. However, police were investigating what appeared to be Molotov cocktails in the back of the van, Sky News reported.

On Saturday night, the three men, wearing fake suicide vests, drove a white van into pedestrians before running amok with knives in nearby Borough Market, killing seven and injuring 48. They were shot dead by police.

May said the UK’s counterterrorism strategy would be reviewed, as she promised to step up efforts to combat Islamist ideology and work with other countries to prevent the internet from being a “safe space” for terrorists.

Media reports recently quoted intelligence officials as saying there are an estimated 23,000 jihadists, or Islamic militants, in the UK.

ANDY BUCHANAN/ AFP People In Carlisle, England, show solidarity on Sunday with vic-tims of Saturday's London terror attack. They gathered outside the County Hotel, where British Labour Party leader Jeremy Cor-byn spoke about the attack that killed seven.