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A man believed to be soldier has been beheaded in a barbaric attack by two men on a street outside Woolwich army barracks in South East London. In the shocking scene, one the killers addressed witnesses saying "you will never be safe."
Two black men who appear to be aged in their mid-20s attacked a man who appeared to be dressed as an Army cadet, according French President Francois Hollande and Military Police Nick Raynsford, speaking to the BBC. Shocking footage recorded by witnesses and made public by ITV shows a man holding a meat cleaver with blood on his hands using jihadist rhetoric to justify the violence.
A man believed to be soldier has been beheaded in a barbaric attack by two men on a street outside Woolwich army barracks in South East London. In the shocking scene, one the killers addressed witnesses saying "you will never be safe."
Two black men who appear to be aged in their mid-20s attacked a man who appeared to be dressed as an Army cadet, according French President Francois Hollande and Military Police Nick Raynsford, speaking to the BBC. Shocking footage recorded by witnesses and made public by ITV shows a man holding a meat cleaver with blood on his hands using jihadist rhetoric to justify the violence.
“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,” the attacker says, as the body of the victim lies just yards away. “The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
Other witnesses can be seen in the background, transfixed in a helpless gaze. One person described seeing a “beheading,” while another said the victim was wearing a “Help for Heroes” shirt advocating a UK military charity.
British Prime Minister told reporters there are “strong indications that this is a terrorist incident,” adding that the UK would “never buckle” to such heinous violence.
A witness, known only as James, told LBC radio in London the two men then dragged the victim into the street while brandishing guns. Reports indicate the perpetrators did not try to flee, instead waiting for police to arrive and asking pedestrians to take pictures of them “as if they wanted to be on TV or something.”
The incident happened next to Woolwhich barracks but the Ministry of Defense has not yet confirmed whether the dead man was in fact a soldier.
A spokesman from Scotland Yard said, “Officers have responded to an incident in John Wilson Street at 2:20 pm today. We believe at this stage that officers were called to reports of an assault."
The London Air Ambulance also confirmed that a doctor and a paramedic were sent to the scene at 14:27 pm.
A Muslim resident told Reuters that "this has nothing to do with Islam. Its heartbreaking, its heartbreaking." Another woman said the two men "looked like they were on drugs."
Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed that he had asked the Home Secretary Theresa May to chair a meeting of Cobra, the government’s emergency committee and that she had requested updates from MI5 and the Metropolitan Police and the government were treating the incident as suspected terrorist attack.
The Defense Secretary Phillip Hammond and the Mayor of London Boris Johnson have also arrived at the Cobra meeting.
The meeting lasted just under an hour and heard that security has been tightened at Woolwich barracks and increased at all London barracks, Downing Street said, the Mirror reports.
Roy Ramm, a former Scotland Yard commander of specialist operations, told the BBC News Channel that the police will be looking into the background of the two men in custody to try and determine if they were part of an organized network or acting alone.
The mayor of London Boris Johnson said that security has been stepped up at military installations across the country and that London's "incredibly resilient" communities had been here before and would pull together.
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