The victim killed in a cleaver
attack Wednesday was identified as Drummer Lee Rigby of 2nd Battalion
The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The brutal killing of Rigby shocked the
United Kingdom, with Prime Minister David Cameron saying the act
appears to have been a terrorist attack.
That's what people around
Britain -- its officials, its authorities, its citizens -- asked
themselves Thursday, a day after the soldier was hit with a car, then
hacked to death on a London street in broad daylight.
There's been no
indication that the 25-year-old machine gunner, drummer and father of a
2-year-old boy knew the men who attacked him with meat cleavers. One of
them who approached a man filming the gory scene in southeast London's
Woolwich neighborhood suggested Rigby had been targeted only "because
Muslims are dying daily" at the hands of British troops like him.
That man and another who
suffered gunshot wounds in a confrontation with police minutes after
Rigby's killing spent Thursday in stable condition at separate South
London hospitals.
Even with those two
suspected attackers under guard, authorities pressed for answers -- and
to determine if others might have been somehow involved and, if so, why.
Six residences have been
searched, and two people -- a man and a woman, both of them age 29 --
were arrested Thursday on "suspicion of conspiracy to murder," London's
Metropolitan Police said.
"This is a large, complex and fast-moving investigation which continues to develop," added police.
The attack, which Prime
Minister David Cameron and others called an act of terror, stirred
anxiety and alerts in Britain not seen since the summer of 2005, when
coordinated bomb attacks struck London's public transport network.
An additional 1,200
police are now on London's streets to reassure the public, Assistant
Commissioner for Specialist Crime and Operations Mark Rowley said, with
extra patrols at key locations such as religious institutions and
transport hubs. Steps were also taken to further protect military
installations and personnel, he added.
Abu Barra blamed
Wednesday's attack not on his friend Michael Adebolajo -- who he says is
the bloody, cleaver-wielding man shown talking in the video aired by CNN affiliate ITN -- but on the British government and predicted there may be more attacks.
"As long as (British) foreign policy is engaging in violence, they're only inviting violence in retaliation," Barra told CNN.
By sharp contrast,
Cameron said "the fault lies solely with sickening individuals who
carried out this attack," adding that "nothing in Islam ... justifies
this truly dreadful act."
"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."
Suspect knew British Muslim radical leader
It is understood that
the two individuals suspected of carrying out the knife attack were
known to Britain's domestic security service. They had featured in
previous investigations into other individuals, but were not themselves
under surveillance.
Friends, acquaintances
and British media identified the 28-year-old Adebolajo as the suspect
seen on the ITN video. The identities of the other man, 22, and the two
people arrested Thursday aren't known.
A British national of Nigerian descent, Adebolajo converted to Islam and became passionate about his faith, said Barra.
British Muslim radical
leader Anjem Choudary told CNN on Thursday that he knew Adebolajo,
noting that the suspect attended demonstrations and a few lectures
organized by Choudary's group Al-Muhajiroun.
In fact, an ITN video
from April 2007 shows Adebolajo standing behind Choudary at a rally
protesting the arrest of men who allegedly made inflammatory speeches
inside a mosque.
Barra described his
friend as a "very caring" man who "just wanted to help everybody." He
was also "very vocal" about his feelings that Muslims were being
oppressed, injustices he pinned, in part, on the British government.
London attack: Eyewitness heard gunshots
Terrorism analyst on soldier killing
Cell phone video of London attack scene
"I wasn't surprised that
it happened," Barra said of Wednesday's attack. "... Britain is only
responsible, the government. And I believe all of us, as a public, we
are responsible. We should condemn ourselves, why we did not do enough
to stop these wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan."
The Woolwich bloodshed
spurred concerns not only about violence by Islamic extremists but also
about attacks targeting Muslims by people angry about Rigby's killing.
"People can only take so
much. And people will break," said Victor Easdown, a construction
worker who heard shots ring out in Woolwich as police took on Rigby's
attackers.
In Kent, police arrested
a man on suspicion of "racially aggravated criminal damage" at a
religious building. And Wednesday night in Essex, a man with two knives
was arrested after throwing a smoke grenade at the Al Falah Braintree
Islamic Center and demanding someone come outside to answer to the
Woolwich slaying, the mosque's secretary Sikander Sleemy said.
Members of the far-right English Defence League clashed with police late Wednesday, with a tweet from its official account touting that "it's fair to say that finally the country is waking up!:-) NO SURRENDER!"
"Don't listen to the Government cover ups, The lies about Islam being peaceful," read another EDL tweet Thursday.
Political and social
commentator Mohammed Ansar appealed for "a sense of calm (and)
perspective" after what he called "a really, really heinous act of, I
would say, criminality, ... not terrorism."
"What we don't need are
knee-jerk reactions ... to really ratchet up tensions and really stoke
and inflame anxieties within communities," he told CNN.
Paper: Woman says she talked to attacker
The attack may have
wide-ranging repercussions in Britain, including possibly enflaming
sectarian tensions and leading to more violence.
But it's already have an
impact on people who live and work in Woolwich -- the working-class,
multicultural neighborhood where the mutilation took place -- and
witnessed the carnage firsthand.
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.
Could London killing inspire other attacks?
"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."
Amid the horror, an individual story of courage emerged Thursday in the person of a Cub Scout leader named Ingrid Loyau-Kennett.
Loyau-Kennett told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper that she had jumped off a bus to try to revive a man -- later determined to be Rigby -- she thought had been hurt accidentally.
She swiftly realized the man was dead, and it was no 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 ax, to cut the bones,
and two large knives, and he said, 'Move off the body,' " she told the
newspaper.
"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."
Unarmed police -- like
most in Britain -- arrived at 2:29 p.m. Wednesday, nine minutes after
the first call came in police. Armed officers were on site five minutes
later. Witnesses recounted the suspects then ran at the police, who
responded with gunshots.
Recalling the incident
later on ITV, Loyau-Kennett said she wasn't scared when she talked to
one of those suspects -- who then had a revolver, knife and cleaver in
his bloody hands -- minutes before those shots rang out.
"Better me than a child," she said.
