Page 8 - ARUBA TODAY

A8 WORLD NEWS
Monday 3 February 2020
Man wearing fake bomb stabs 2 in London and is shot to death

By GREGORY KATZ and area’s main shopping dis-
DANICA KIRKA trict. “They kept telling him,
Associated Press ‘Stop! Stop!’’ Tahir said.
LONDON (AP) — A man “But he didn’t stop, and
recently released from then I saw that they shot
prison after serving time for him three times. It was hor-
terrorism-related offenses rible seeing it.
strapped on a fake bomb The man was on the floor
and stabbed two people and it looked like he had
on a busy London street something, which police
Sunday before being shot said may be a device.
to death by police, officials Police came to us and
said. said, ‘You have to leave
Deputy Assistant Commis- the shop because he has a
sioner Lucy D’Orsi said po- bomb in his bag.’”
lice are “confident” the Images shared on social
attacker was 20-year-old media showed a man lying
Sudesh Amman. on the sidewalk outside a
He had been convicted for pharmacy.
publishing graphic terror- Stephen Roberts, a former
ist videos online and had deputy commissioner for
stockpiled instructions on the Metropolitan Police,
bomb making and knife at- said if the stabbings were
tacks, according to police. carried out by a “self-
“The suspect had been re- starter” — someone acting
cently released from prison A police forensic officer works near the scene after a stabbing incident in Streatham London, alone — it means any city
where he had been serv- England, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020. Associated Press in the country is vulnerable
ing a sentence for Islamist- to a similar sort of low-tech
related terrorism offences,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson will survive Sunday’s attack likely to be raised about attack.
she said. said measures will be intro- in the bustling commer- why the officers trailing Am- In November, British au-
The afternoon incident in duced Monday to bring cial and residential south man could not prevent his thorities lowered the na-
London recalled a Novem- “fundamental” change to London neighborhood attack. tional terror threat level to
ber stabbing attack carried the way people convicted of Streatham, where Am- Video from the scene ap- “substantial,’’ meaning an
out by another man who of terrorism offenses are man struck outside a major peared to show three un- attack is considered likely.
had served prison time for handled in prison and af- pharmacy on a busy shop- dercover police officers in That is the third-highest
terrorism offense. Two were terward. ping afternoon. an unmarked car making a rung in a five-step system
killed in that attack. It seems likely the victims D’Orsi said a stabbing vic- quick stop just after the at- used by British authorities
tim in his 40s thought to be tack. and marked the first time
in life-threatening condi- Bell Reberio-Addy, a mem- since August 2014 that the
tion has improved. ber of Parliament who rep- threat level had been so
She said the victim is no resents Streatham, said the low.
longer in danger and that attacker had been un- It was lowered because of
a woman who had been der surveillance “for some the belief that the threat
hospitalized has been re- time.” of British jihadis returning to
leased. D’Orsi said there was no the country from Syria had
One other female victim is “continuing danger” to been reduced by events
still in the hospital with lesser the public, but the area there, including the Islamic
injuries police believe were remained cordoned off as State group’s loss of terri-
caused by flying glass af- the investigation contin- tory.
ter the attacker was shot ued. It is not clear if the two at-
dead. The usually busy area was tacks since then will lead
D’Orsi said the incident deserted as the public the independent analysts
started at 2 p.m. when Am- heeded police requests to who make recommenda-
man was already being stay away. tion to the government to
trailed by police. The drama about 5 miles suggest raising the level
“Armed officers, who were (8 kilometers) south of cen- London Mayor Sadiq Khan
part of a proactive coun- tral London marked a de- urged community resolve
terterrorism operation and parture from recent terror in the face of another at-
were following the suspect attacks in the British capi- tack.
on foot, were in immedi- tal that took place near “Terrorists seek to divide us
ate attendance and shot a landmarks such as London and to destroy our way of
male suspect dead at the Bridge and the Houses of life,’’ he said. “Here in Lon-
scene,” she said. Parliament. don we will never let them
She said police saw a de- The attack caused chaos succeed.”
vice strapped to the at- and panic on what had Also Sunday, police in Bel-
tacker’s body and called been a typical Sunday af- gium shot a woman who
in specialist officers who ternoon, with the streets stabbed and wounded
quickly determined the filled wish shoppers. passersby in the city of Gh-
purported explosive de- Karker Tahir said he was ent, but prosecutors said
vice was a hoax. at work when he saw po- there was no suspicion of
Officials praised the police lice chasing a man down terrorism or a link to what
action but questions are Streatham High Road, the happened in London.q