Cameron condemns brutal hacking death, says Britain stands firm
Flowers lay outside Woolwich Barracks on May 23, 2013 in London, England.
London (CNN) -- Prime Minister David Cameron said
Britain would be "absolutely resolute" in the face of terrorism
Thursday, as he vowed to track down those behind the brutal hacking
death of a British soldier in London.
Cameron condemned the
"horrific attack" and said it had nothing to do with Islam, despite
claims made by the two suspected attackers.
Cameron spoke after a
crisis meeting of senior officials, as security was increased at army
bases around London amid fears of additional attacks.
It is understood that the
two people suspected of carrying out the knife attack were known to
Britain's domestic security service. They had featured in previous
investigations into other people, but were not themselves under
surveillance.
The calling of the crisis
meeting Thursday -- the second in less than 24 hours -- indicates how
seriously the government is taking what it believes is a terrorist
incident.
Cameron cut short an
official visit to Paris to lead the summit, attended by Home Secretary
Theresa May, Defense Secretary Philip Hammond, London Mayor Boris
Johnson and senior police and security officials.
"We will never give in to
terror or terrorism in any form," Cameron said. The thoughts of the
country are with the victim and his family, he added.
Police searched an
address in Lincolnshire, eastern England, in connection with the
slaying, which took place in southeast London's Woolwich neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Assistant
Commissioner Simon Byrne, of the Metropolitan Police, appealed for
Londoners to remain calm, despite their shock, as investigations
continue.
"London is at its best when we all come together, and now is the time to do that," he said.
Both men suspected in
the attack were shot by police and are under guard at local hospitals.
Authorities have not released their identities.
British media outlets
including Sky and the Daily Mail are naming one of the suspects as
Michael Adebolajo. CNN has not independently confirmed the name.
The victim was a serving
soldier, London's Metropolitan Police said. They are not releasing his
name in line with his family's wishes.
The capital has not
witnessed an alert of this kind since the summer of 2005, when London's
public transport network was targeted with coordinated bomb attacks.
The scene of the
gruesome killing, close to the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich,
remained cordoned off as police searched the scene Thursday morning.
A video recorded by one of the two men immediately after the attack seemed to suggest a jihadist agenda.
"We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone," said a meat cleaver-wielding man with bloody hands, speaking in what seems to be a London accent.
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"The only reasons we killed this man ... is because Muslims are dying daily," he added, in video aired by
CNN affiliate ITN. "This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth."
British soldiers have participated in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Prominent British Muslim
radical leader Anjem Choudary told CNN on Thursday that he knew one of
the men named on social media as carrying out the Woolwich knife attack.
Choudary said the suspect had attended demonstrations and a few lectures organized by Choudary's group Al-Muhajiroun.
Cameron said Britons would stand together to defeat the threat of violent extremism.
"This was not just an
attack on Britain and on the British way of life, it was also a betrayal
of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our
country," he said.
"There is nothing in
Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act. ... The fault lies solely
with the sickening individuals who carried out this attack."
Britain is working with
its international partners to protect against terrorism "that has taken
more Muslim lives than any other religion," Cameron said.
'I had better start talking to him'
Residents on Thursday
shared with CNN their shock that something like this could have happened
in the working-class, multicultural area where they live and work.
Construction worker
Victor Easdown, who heard the shots ring out as police took on the
attackers, fears the incident could fuel tensions and reprisal attacks.
"People can only take so much. And people will break," he said.
Graham Wilder, a
resident whose son attends a nearby school, told how he feared for the
safety of his family and other children who had just left the school
Wednesday afternoon.
After he saw that one of
the attackers had a gun, he alerted police and school authorities,
Wilder said. He heard shots fired and screamed for his wife, who was at a
nearby store, to get down.
But despite the savagery
of the attack, eyewitnesses in Woolwich appeared to stay calm in the
moments immediately afterward, prompting London Mayor Boris Johnson to
pay tribute to their "exemplary courage and bravery."
Video footage showed passersby gathered nearby, and one woman, Cub Scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett,
told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper how she tried to talk to the two attackers to stop further violence.
The mother of two had
jumped off a bus after seeing the man on the ground to see if she could
give him emergency aid, she told the newspaper.
But she swiftly realized the man was dead, and it was not an accident.
"When I went up, there
was this black guy with a revolver and a kitchen knife. He had what
looked like butcher's tools, and he had a little axe, to cut the bones,
and two large knives, and he said, 'Move off the body.'
"So I thought 'OK, I
don't know what is going on here,' and he was covered with blood. I
thought I had better start talking to him before he starts attacking
somebody else."
Another witness, Michael
Atlee, described the gruesome, frenzied and ultimately fatal sequence
of events as "a bloody mess." The men first ran the victim down in a car
before attacking him with knives, he said.
'They were just animals'
A man who identified
himself as James told London's LBC 97.3 radio station that he saw two
men standing by the victim, who was on the ground.
At first, James thought they were trying to help the man. But then he saw two meat cleavers, like a butcher would have.
"They were hacking at
this poor guy, literally," he told the radio station. "These two guys
were crazed. They were just not there. They were just animals."
The brazenness of the
attack, along with the fact that the men waited some 30 minutes for
police to arrive without trying to flee, seemed to indicate they wanted
to publicize their message.
The men appeared to want
to be filmed, with one of the attackers going over to a bus and asking
people to take photos of him as if he wanted to be on TV.
A man who asked not to
be identified told ITN that he was on his way to a job interview when he
came up on the scene and started filming it. Then, a man with a cleaver
and knife in his bloody hands "came straight to me (and) said, 'No, no,
no, it's cool. I just want to talk to you.' "
The suspect went on to
apologize to women who had witnessed the attack, then quickly added "but
in our lands, our women have to see the same."
"You people will never
be safe," he said. "Remove your government. They don't care about you.
You think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we
start busting our guns?
"... Get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back so we can all live in peace."
Reprisal attacks
There were concerns the
brutal incident might inflame animosity against Muslims, with
Metropolitan Police deploying riot police as a precautionary measure.
The Muslim Council of
Britain, after condemning what it called "a truly barbaric act that has
no basis in Islam," urged Muslims and non-Muslims alike "to come
together in solidarity to ensure the forces of hatred do not prevail."
"What we have seen on
the streets of London has been particularly sickening, a really, really
heinous act of I would say criminality -- and I'm being careful to say
criminality, not terrorism," political and social commentator Mohammed
Ansar told CNN.
The motivation behind what happened remains unclear, he pointed out.
"What we need at this
time is a sense of calm, a sense of measure and a sense of perspective.
What we don't need are knee-jerk reactions ... to really ratchet up
tensions and really stoke and inflame anxieties within communities."
Members of the far-right
English Defense League clashed with police late Wednesday.
The
group's official Twitter account posted this call to action: "ANY EDL MEMBERS TAKE TO THE STREETS IN YOUR LOCAL TOWN/CITY TAKE A STAND !!!!!!"
Later Wednesday, a man
with two knives threw a smoke grenade into a mosque in Essex, a county
east of London, and demanded someone come outside to answer to the
Woolwich slaying, the mosque's secretary said. Police responded quickly
and arrested the man, said Al Falah Braintree Islamic Center secretary
Sikander Sleemy.
"I believe this was a
revenge attack for what happened in Woolwich," Sleemy said. "We strongly
condemn what happened in Woolwich. It's not an Islamic act."
In Kent, police arrested a man on suspicion of "racially aggravated criminal damage" at a religious building.
Soldiers targeted before
Nick Raynsford, the
member of Parliament for Woolwich, told CNN the soldier apparently had
been on duty in central London and was returning to the barracks when he
was attacked.
Troops stationed at the historic military barracks have a close relationship with locals, the parliament member said.
This isn't the first time British soldiers have been singled out.
Last month, four radical
Islamists were convicted at Woolwich Crown Court of a plot to drive a
car full of explosives, by remote control, into an army barracks in
Luton, north of London.
Several years earlier,
police interrupted a scheme in which Islamists planned to kidnap a
solider of Pakistani heritage and behead him. Their plan called for
releasing an Internet video of the decapitation.
A pub in the same area of Woolwich was targeted by the Irish Republican Army in 1974. Two people died in the bombing.
Local residents said
police responded quickly when the alarm was raised Wednesday afternoon
but questioned how long it had taken for a specialist firearms unit to
arrive. British police typically don't carry guns.
The Metropolitan Police
said its first officers were on the scene within nine minutes of the
alert being raised. The firearms unit was there 14 minutes after the
first call was made, the force said.
"There has been an
increased police presence in Woolwich and the surrounding areas
overnight, and this will continue for as long as it is needed," said
Assistant Commissioner Byrne.
"There were small
incidents of minor disorder in Woolwich" late Wednesday, he said, but
police dealt with these without arrests or reports of injuries or
damage.
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