In a suspected terror attack, a person believed to be a British soldier was on Wednesday beheaded near a barrack here by two reported Islamists who were later shot and wounded by the police.
British police shot and wounded the two assailants, a senior officer said, after reports that a soldier was killed in a Woolwich street near a London army barracks. “Two men, who we believe from early reports to have been carrying weapons, were shot by police,” Commander Simon Letchford said.
10, Downing Street has called a meeting of the Government’s Cobra emergency committee after the incident, which Prime Minister David Cameron described as “truly shocking”.
Cameron said there were “strong indications that it is a terrorist incident” and the UK would “never buckle” in the face of such attacks.
Senior police officers are thought to believe the killing was a politically-motivated Islamist terrorist attack and video has emerged that appears to show one of the alleged attackers attempting to justify the pair’s actions, the Telegraph reported. Footage showed one of the men with a bloodied meat cleaver making political statements.
“We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” “I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you,” he added.
Dozens of weapons – including a number of knives – and pools of blood could be seen on the ground, where a man wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt is said to have been attacked by two men.
–PTI