The man behind the knife attacks in the Leytonstone metro in London reportedly shouted “this is for Syria” as he slashed at bystanders and injured three, sending one to a nearby hospital with “serious, but not life threatening” injuries. The closing moments of the incident were captured above, also showing a defiant bystander shouting at the subdued assailant and saying, “you ain’t no muslim, bruv.”
The saying has since become a rallying cry following the incident that authorities are now considering some form of terrorism according to Reuters:
We are treating this as a terrorist incident,” Richard Walton, who leads the Counter Terrorism Command at London’s Metropolitan Police, said in a statement. The man was arrested after police discharged a Taser which stuns suspects.
An eyewitness quoted by The Guardian and other British newspapers said the attacker appeared to claim that he was retaliating for Western air strikes on Islamist militants in Syria. Police declined to comment on those reports and it was not immediately possible to verify them independently…
Senior government minister Iain Duncan Smith said whatever the circumstances, Britons must not let the Leytonstone incident affect their behavior.
“We cannot let these sort of people, terrorists et cetera, actually dominate our space,” he told the BBC. “The way we defeat them at the end of the day is with our values, our freedom of expression, our freedom of belief … our ability to take our children, our families out at Christmas. None of that must be curtailed.”
Other videos posted on social media show the graphic scene of a pool of blood near the turnstile/ticket gates in the station and the suspect confronting police — giving a different angle to the video posted above.
The incident follows parliamentary approval to begin bombing missions against targets in Syria related to ISIS and certainly raises memories of not only the 2013 attacks that resulted in the death of military soldier Lee Rigby, but also the 2005 suicide bombings that rocked London on 7/7.
(Via Reuters)