UK’s May: ‘Enough is enough’
After third major attack kills 7, leader vows to intensify fight against terror
LONDON — Declaring “enough is enough,” Prime Minister Theresa May vowed Sunday a sweeping review of Britain’s counterterrorism strategy after three knife-wielding assailants unleashed an assault late Saturday, the third major terrorist attack in the country in three months.
At least seven people were killed and dozens more wounded, including 21 who remained in critical condition, as the men sped across London Bridge in a white van, ramming numerous pedestrians, before emerging with large hunting knives for a rampage in the capital’s Borough Market, a crowded nightspot.
In a matter of minutes, the three assailants were chased down by eight armed officers who fired about 50 rounds, killing the men, who wore what appeared to be suicide vests that subsequently proved to be fake. One member of the public also suffered nonfatal gunshot wounds, police said.
The assault came days before national elections this week and after the British government had downgraded the threat level to “severe” from “crit-
ical,” meaning that an attack was highly likely but not imminent.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack via its Amaq news service.
On Sunday morning, May’s Conservative Party and the opposition Labour Party announced they were suspending campaigning for parliamentary elections out of respect for the victims.
But May said the election would go ahead Thursday as planned.
The prime minister led an emergency meeting of her security Cabinet on Sunday morning. In a statement afterward, she said the government would intensify its counterterrorism efforts to deal with Islamist radicalism at home and to try to restrict “the safe spaces it needs to breed,” both on the internet and in British communities.
“Everybody needs to go about their lives as they normally would,” she said. “Our society should continue to function in accordance with our values. But when it comes to taking on extremism and terrorism, things need to change.”
May said the government may extend the time of custodial sentences for terrorism suspects, but more needed to be done in binding communities together to combat what she called “a perversion of Islam,” adding, “There is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.”
May also said the London attack was not connected to a suicide bombing at a pop concert in Manchester, England, last month that killed 22 people.
While none of the assailants in Saturday’s attack were identified, the counterterrorism police conducted a raid Sunday in Barking, in east London, in connection with the assault and arrested 12 — seven women and five men between the ages of 19 and 60. Searches there continued, police said, suggesting that they had identified at least one assailant.
Britain’s home secretary, Amber Rudd, refused to say whether the attackers had been known to authorities before Saturday.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said security would remain heightened throughout the week.
Khan, who described the assault as a “deliberate and cowardly attack on innocent Londoners,” said that some of the injured were in critical condition, raising the possibility that the death toll could rise. “We will never let these cowards win and we will never be cowed by terrorism,” he said.
The Muslim Council of Britain also condemned the attack and praised the emergency services.
“Muslims everywhere are outraged and disgusted at these cowards who once again have destroyed the lives of our fellow Britons,” said the council’s secretary-general, Harun Khan. “That this should happen in this month of Ramadan, when many Muslims were praying and fasting only goes to show that these people respect neither life nor faith.”
President Donald Trump on Twitter took aim at political correctness and Khan.
“We must stop being politically correct and get down to the business of security for our people,” he posted. “If we don’t get smart it will only get worse.”
Trump then accused the London mayor, inaccurately, of saying there was nothing for Londoners to be concerned about.
Khan didn’t respond to Trump; a spokesman said pointedly that the mayor had “more important things to do.”
The president also conflated the London attack with a debate that flares up periodically in the U.S. when mass shootings occur.
“Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now?” Trump tweeted. “That’s because they used knives and a truck!”
Social media users pointed out that if gun laws in Britain — which has some of the world’s toughest restrictions on firearm ownership — were more like those in the U.S., the attackers might indeed have wielded guns and caused a vastly higher toll.