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UK police reveal names of London attackers, say one investigated before

By Costas Pitas and David Milliken

REUTERS

 

Two of the men shot dead by police following the attack on London Bridge and Borough Market on Saturday are seen in this undated combination image of two photographs, received in London via the Metropolitan Police in London on June 5, 2017. On left is Khuram Shazad Butt and on right is Rachid Redouane. Metropolitan Police, Handout via REUTERS

 

LONDON (Reuters) - British police and security services had previously investigated one of the Islamist militants who carried out Saturday's attack in London, but with resources scarce, he was not deemed enough of a threat to warrant close monitoring, police said on Monday.

 

The news raises questions about the police's judgment and increases pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May, who three days before a national election is facing criticism for overseeing cuts to police during her years as interior minister.

 

In Britain's third Islamist attack in as many months, three men on Saturday rammed a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before running into the Borough Market area, where they slit throats and stabbed people indiscriminately. Seven people were killed and dozens wounded.

 

All three attackers were shot dead by police, who made at least a dozen arrests in east London on Sunday and carried out further raids on Monday.

 

Police on Monday named two of the attackers and said they were trying to identify the third. One, 27-year-old Khuram Shazad Butt, was a British citizen born in Pakistan who had already been investigated by police and Britain's domestic spy agency MI5.

 

"However, there was no intelligence to suggest that this attack was being planned, and the investigation had been prioritised accordingly," police said.

 

Another attacker, 30-year-old Rachid Redouane, went by the alias Rachid Elkhdar and claimed to be Moroccan or Libyan, police said. He and Butt lived in the same area of east London.

 

One of Butt's neighbours, Ikenna Chigbo, told Reuters he had chatted with Butt - also known as "Abz" - just hours before the attack on Saturday and said he appeared "almost euphoric".

 

"He was very sociable, seemed like an ordinary family man. He would always bring his kid out into the lobby".

 

Another neighbour, Michael Mimbo, told Reuters that Butt supported the north London football team Arsenal. One of the dead attackers has been pictured wearing an Arsenal shirt.

 

Mimbo said Butt had grown a longer beard and worn traditional Islamic dress more often over the two years he had known him, but showed no sign of radicalisation.

 

"As an individual he was a cool, calm guy. One of my friends would let Abz babysit his daughter," Mimbo said.

 

Police said on Monday they had released all 12 people arrested in the neighbourhood on Sunday without charge. However, police were investigating what appeared to be Molotov cocktails in the back of the van, Sky News reported.

 

POLICE CUTS

 

The rampage followed a suicide bomb attack which killed 22 adults and children at a concert in Manchester two weeks ago, and an attack in March when five people died after a van was driven into pedestrians on London's Westminster Bridge.

 

May described the latest incident as "an attack on the free world".

 

But with Britons due to vote in a national election on Thursday, her decision to reduce the number of police officers in England and Wales by almost 20,000 during her six years as interior minister from 2010 to 2016 shot to the top of the political agenda.

 

May did not answer repeated questions from reporters on her cuts, but said counter-terrorism budgets had been protected and police had the powers they needed.

 

Police said they had to prioritise resources on suspects who were believed to be preparing an attack or providing active support for one. Butt did not fall into this category when they last investigated him.

 

"It's just a fact that, over the last seven years, we as a city have lost 600 million pounds from our budgets. We have had to close police stations, sell police buildings, and we've lost thousands of police staff," said London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a member of the opposition Labour Party.

 

May's main opponent, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, backed calls for her resignation over the police cuts.

 

He said many people were "very worried that she was at the Home Office for all this time, presided over these cuts in police numbers, and now is saying that we have a problem".

 

May hit back by criticising Corbyn, a pacifist who has opposed some security legislation in parliament and expressed reservations in the past about police responding to armed attackers with "shoot-to-kill" tactics.

 

Corbyn's critics have often accused him of weakness on terrorism, citing his sympathy for members of the Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army. The IRA ran a 30-year armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland.

 

The Conservative Party's lead over Labour has narrowed markedly from 20 points or more when May called the election in April to a range between one and 12 points now, although the Conservatives are still widely expected to win a majority.

 

'TELL THEM CHRISSY SENT YOU'

 

Christine Archibald, a 30-year-old Canadian who had worked in a shelter for the homeless before moving to Europe to be with her fiancé, was the first of those who died to be named.

 

Thousands attended a vigil on Monday evening to honour the victims outside London's City Hall, close to London Bridge.

 

Before holding a minute's silence, Khan, the first Muslim to be elected mayor of a major Western European city, said: "I want to send a clear message to the sick and evil extremists who commit these hideous crimes. We will defeat you. You will not win."

 

The Islamic State militant group, which is losing territory in Syria and Iraq to an offensive backed by a U.S.-led coalition, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

 

(Additional reporting by Kate Holton, William James, Kylie MacLellan, Elisabeth O'Leary, Andy Bruce, Michael Holden and Jonathan Coffey; writing by Estelle Shirbon, David Milliken and Alistair Smout; editing by Kevin Liffey and G Crosse)

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-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-06-06

[DaveE13]

A couple of good East End boys I see!! 

Scum

Barking is a shit hell hole  hardly any one left who was born and grew up there in the 70s and 80s left.

Most of the old real east end families who were moved to Barking & Dagenham area after WW2 like my old mans family whose houses in Poplar and Bow were destroyed during the Bkitz have long gone. What you have now are many Eastern Europeans and people like these two terrorists. Even on Saturday night a road not far from where the Police raided Mr Butts home there was a stabbing. 

 

[impulse]

One more time, they had lots of information as a result of their intrusive monitoring that's eroding every citizen's privacy rights, but it didn't help keep us safe.

 

Ben Franklin is proven correct one more time.

 

Edited June 6, 2017 by impulse

[Orac]

Difficult to be less known as an islamic extremist than appearing in a bbc documentary on Jihadists!

[Jonmarleesco]

'... with resources scarce, he was not deemed enough of a threat to warrant close monitoring, police said on Monday.'

 

Well, evidently, he was. Resources were obviously misdirected. And I suspect it'll happen again. Unless, by some miracle of strategic thinking, the government deems it worthwhile clamping down on every single Islamist of interest, and to hell with their 'human rights.'

[impulse]

7 minutes ago, Jonmarleesco said:

'... with resources scarce, he was not deemed enough of a threat to warrant close monitoring, police said on Monday.'

 

Well, evidently, he was. Resources were obviously misdirected. And I suspect it'll happen again. Unless, by some miracle of strategic thinking, the government deems it worthwhile clamping down on every single Islamist of interest, and to hell with their 'human rights.'

 

As an alternative, I'd suggest re-tasking all the resources they're spending hoovering up information on my Aunt Jane (a lesbian spinster) and millions of other citizens of absolutely no interest.

 

When you focus on everybody, you're not focusing on anybody.

 

[bert bloggs]

There are just so many of this community that owe no alegance to our way of life ,the police could not cope if they had thousands more and monitored them daily / its an almost immposible chore ,the only answer is if they come to the attention of the police(two killers were in the prog "Muslims like us" get rid of them ,

[Stargeezr]

So these three killers, were imports to Britain, born in other Muslim countries, well well  what  a big surprise.  This will not be the last attack, that I am certain. Good Luck GB you need it.

Geezer

[ilostmypassword]

34 minutes ago, Jonmarleesco said:

'... with resources scarce, he was not deemed enough of a threat to warrant close monitoring, police said on Monday.'

 

Well, evidently, he was. Resources were obviously misdirected. And I suspect it'll happen again. Unless, by some miracle of strategic thinking, the government deems it worthwhile clamping down on every single Islamist of interest, and to hell with their 'human rights.'

Why this kind of terrorism is nearly impossible to stop

The truth is that the basic mode of attack used in London — ramming a crowded area with a vehicle, then getting out and stabbing anyone you can find — could easily be executed with no direction from experienced militants...

In the past several years, there has been a spate of terrorist attacks in which individual Palestinian motorists have run down civilians or Israeli army soldiers. The Israeli security establishment, one of the most effective in the world, cannot seem to predict these attacks or stop them from happening.

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/6/4/15736480/london-bridge-borough-market-trump-may