Woolwich attack: terrorist proclaimed 'an eye for an eye' after
attack…
In the first terrorist murder
on the British mainland since the 7/7 suicide bombings of 2005, the men
attempted to behead the soldier, hacking at him like a “piece of meat” in front
of dozens of witnesses, before both were shot by police who took around 20
minutes to arrive.
After the killing, one of the
men, believed to be a British-born Muslim convert, spoke calmly into a
witness’s video phone.
One of the attackers speaks
into a witness’s camera phone following the attack (ITV)
Speaking with a London accent,
holding a knife and a meat cleaver and with his hands dripping with blood, he
said: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you
leave us alone. Your people will never be safe. The only reason we have done
this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day.
“We must fight them as they
fight us. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I apologise that women had
to witness this today but in our lands our women have to see the same. You
people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you.
Do you think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start
busting our guns? Do you think your politicians are going to die?
“No, it’s going to be the
average guy like you, and your children. So get rid of them. Tell them to bring
our troops back so we, so you can all live in peace.”
Witnesses said that the men
used a car to run over the soldier just yards from the Royal Artillery Barracks
in Woolwich, south-east London, before setting about him with knives and a meat
cleaver as if they were “trying to remove organs”. One unconfirmed report
suggested that he had been beheaded.
Passers-by said they thought at
first that the attackers were trying to help the man, who was wearing a Help for
Heroes T-shirt, and only realised they were killing him when they got closer.
As they attacked the soldier,
one of the men shouted “Allahu akbar”, or God is Great, according to the BBC,
while another witness said they appeared to pray next to the body as if the
solder was a “sacrifice”.
Their victim, thought to be
aged around 20, had reportedly been on duty at an Army recruitment office in
central London and was on his way back to the barracks when he was murdered at
2.20pm.
It emerged that passers-by went
to the soldier’s aid. One of the killers ordered that only women could tend to
the body, not men.
There were also questions over
why it took around 20 minutes for armed police to arrive on the scene, during
which time the killers calmly walked up and down the road, carrying their
bloodied knives and a pistol, while members of the public confronted them.
When police did arrive, both
gunmen tried to rush at the police and were shot, reportedly by a female
officer.
On Wednesday night they were
under armed guard in separate hospitals. Their British accents suggested that
they were “home-grown” terrorists and security sources said they did not
believe anyone else was involved in the incident.
David Cameron described the
attack, which had chilling echoes of a plot to behead a soldier foiled in
Birmingham in 2007, as “absolutely sickening”, but said that Britain will
“never buckle” in the face of terrorism. This morning he will chair a meeting
of the Government’s Cobra emergency briefing committee to be updated on developments.
Speaking in Paris, where he had
been meeting François Hollande, the French president, he said: “We have
suffered these attacks before. We have always beat them back. We have done that
through a combination of vigilance, of security, of security information, good
policing.
“But above all, the way we have
beaten them back is showing an absolutely indomitable British spirit that we
will not be cowed, we will never buckle under these attacks. The terrorists
will never win because they can never beat the values we hold dear, the belief
in freedom, in democracy, in free speech, in our British values, Western
values. They are never going to defeat those. That is how we will stand up to
these people, whoever they are, however many there are of them, and that is how
we will win.”
He added that “every aspect” of
security would be reviewed. After a Cobra meeting last night, chaired by
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, security was tightened at all London barracks.
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of
London who attended the meeting, said: “I know that Londoners have been through
terrorism before and this city has huge resilience.
“What we also have is the best,
the most professional security services and the best police in the world to
protect us and they are now going to get to the bottom of exactly what’s
happened.”
The Queen announced that she
would go ahead with a planned visit to the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery
at Woolwich Barracks next week.
The murder appeared to have
been planned to ensure maximum publicity, with the killers urging witnesses to
take their picture “as if they wanted to be on TV”. One witness, identified
only as James, said he and his partner watched in horror as they realised what
they were seeing. He shouted at the men to stop, only for one of them to pull
out a gun and threaten to shoot him.
After driving his car further
up the road, he stopped and called the police, telling them to bring armed
units.
He said: “These two guys are
chopping this guy to pieces, literally hacking at something like it’s a bit of
meat. These two guys were crazed, they were just animals. They then dragged the
poor guy from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road.
“They were standing there with
the knives in their hand, waving the gun about. There were police at the end of
the road but there were no police in the vicinity of the attackers. I think
they were proud of what they were doing.”
Footage of the incident
obtained by ITV News showed one woman crouched over the body of the dead
soldier in an attempt to shield it from further attack. Three other women stood
between the body and the killers.
Joe Tallant, a van loader who
lives near the scene, said: “My friend and her mum were walking up the hill and
the mum came straight to the victim.
“She asked the black guys, 'Can
I help him?’ And one of them said he was already dead but she could have a go.
Then one of them said, 'No man is coming near this body, only women.’
“She was so brave, she didn’t
care what happened to her; she knelt down by his side and comforted him. She
held his hand and put her other hand on his chest.”
Mulgrave Primary School, just
yards from the scene of the killing, went into “lockdown”. However, parents
said some of the children had witnessed the attack.
The Muslim Council of Britain
condemned the killing as a “truly barbaric” act with “no basis in Islam”.
A spokesman said: “We call on
all our communities, Muslim and non-Muslim, to come together in solidarity to
ensure the forces of hatred do not prevail.”
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