British soldier killed in Woolwich horror

http://news.sky.com/story/1094380/woolwich-soldier-dead-after-machete-attack



Woolwich: 'Soldier Dead After Machete Attack'

Weapons are strewn across a blood-stained road in south east London amid reports a soldier is dead and two people have been shot.

A serving soldier is reportedly dead and two people have been shot in Woolwich, south east London, after armed police were called to a machete attack, eyewitnesses say.

Dozens of weapons - including a number of knives - and pools of blood could be seen on the ground in John Wilson Street, where a man wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt is said to have been attacked.

The Metropolitan Police confiirmed one person had had died following the incident and said the Independent Police Complaints Commission had now taken over the investigation.

Woolwich MP Nick Raynsford told Sky News he believed the deceased was a serving soldier.

He said he had spoken to both borough commander Richard Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Bob Christopher at Woolwich Barracks - around a mile from the scene of the attack.

Mr Raynsford said: "One individual is dead, two others are seriously injured and in hospital.

"The circumstances causing the incident are not yet clear. It's been suggested it was the product of a road traffic accident, but that's pure speculation.

"I'll be talking to everyone who is involved, we will be trying to do everything possible to try and ensure calm in the area. People will be very, very shocked.

"We think a serving soldier was the victim. We don't know the circumstances surrounding the incident."

Police were sent to the scene at around 2.20pm. The immediate area has been shut down, with eyewitnesses describing the incident on Twitter as "horrific".

On its Twitter account, the Metropolitan Police helicopter team called the incident "serious".

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We believe at this stage officers were called to reports of an assault."

London Air Ambulance confirmed one patient was airlifted from the scene, while another was taken away by road ambulance.

The service would not confirm the nature of their injuries or where they were being taken.

------------

There's a lot more about this on Twitter, etc, from possible eye-witnesses. I sincerely hope those reports are not true.

And rumours are starting to spread that this was a terrorist attack. Not good.

http://news.sky.com/story/1094437/woolwich-attackers-filmed-each-other

Woolwich Attackers 'Filmed' Each Other
6:08pm UK, Wednesday 22 May 2013



Email
Two attackers filmed their deadly assault on a man in Woolwich, according to Sky sources.

Senior Whitehall sources said the attackers had also asked passers-by to film them, and had shouted "Allahu Akbar" (Allah is great).

A meeting of Cobra - the government-level national emergency response committee - has been convened, the source added.

Home Secretary Theresa May has described the events in Woolwich, south east London, at around 2:20pm, as "sickening."

Sky Home Affairs Correspondent said: “There has been a concern for some considerable time about the potential for home-grown terrorist groups.

“These kind of attacks do not need to be sophisticated and in many respects the less sophisticated they are, the more easily an attack can be perpetrated.”

Sky News has learned Prime Minister David Cameron has cut short a trip to Paris to return to London to oversee the response to the attack.

-----------

It is looking like it was indeed a terrorist attack. God knows what the consequences of this barbarity are going to be.

This is an area I know quite well, we lived in nearby Blackheath for about 4 years. We used to go shopping in the market there at the weekend. It's a typical South London suburb, nothing special , really only known for the famous Woolwich Barracks and the Woolwich Arsenal which is where Arsenal Football club started in 1886, moving north of the river to Highbury in 1913. They are certainly upping the ante over this, Cameron is cutting his visit to France short and flying back to London and COBRA has been convened. CNN is just showing a video of a black man with a knife and a small machete gesturing at the camera, hands covered in blood. LL

The link seems to have crashed, muratfan....

There's a still from it on the Mail site:



Shocking: This exclusive still from a video obtained by ITV News shows a man with bloodied hands and carrying knives speaking to a camera in Woolwich, south-east London

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329089/Woolwich-attack-Two-men-hack-soldier-wearing-Help-Heroes-T-shirt-death-machetes-suspected-terror-attack.html#ixzz2U3eC9oVy
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

It seems two women stood over the soldier's body to stop the scum mutilating him further, and I am very glad it was a female officer who shot the scumbags.

Similar pic here:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4938197/shooting-in-woolwich-london.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329236/Woolwich-attack--Moment-heroic-woman-tries-remonstrate-knife-wielding-soldier-killer-police-arrived-scene.html

She and the other women who intervened deserve a medal; pity a few men hadn't acted similarly, instead of filming it all on their cellphones.

I am keeping out of this because if I put what I really think then I will not stop, and get myself in trouble

It is obvious that, when the two men charged the police, they wanted to be killed, to be lauded as martyrs, to go to heaven and have fun with those virgins!! But UK police usually shoot to disable unless the situation is one where stopping the combatants by wounding is not a feasible option, which is what happened here. I see the English Defence League, neo-nazis, held a protest of about 60 persons outside Woolwich Railway Station. They were dispersed but promised to be back in force today. The Muslim Council of GB has firmly denounced what happened. LL

Twenty Minutes for The Police to get there? Something needs to be done about that if there is a next time. Not sure what though. But half Woolwich could have been dead in that time.

Sabot wrote:
Twenty Minutes for The Police to get there? Something needs to be done about that if there is a next time. Not sure what though. But half Woolwich could have been dead in that time.

That was the time for the armed police to get there, not the PC Plods. When it was phoned through what was happening the unarmed police would be told to keep back. I'm not sure where the armed response teams are housed, but probably not in the Woolwich station. LL
ETA I think they might be stationed at Lewisham which is approximately a 20 minutes drive from Woolwich and the station there is a large one. LL

Lamplighter wrote:

Sabot wrote:
Twenty Minutes for The Police to get there? Something needs to be done about that if there is a next time. Not sure what though. But half Woolwich could have been dead in that time.

That was the time for the armed police to get there, not the PC Plods. When it was phoned through what was happening the unarmed police would be told to keep back. I'm not sure where the armed response teams are housed, but probably not in the Woolwich station. LL

I really don't know what is to be done about it, LL. But total mayhem could have happened in the twenty minutes it took to get armed police there.

I have lived with armed Police for twenty years now, and they just don't go around popping off all over the place. Nor do they engender any fear in me.

And as for Cameron saying, "We will not buckle to terrorism." Who's this "We" he's talking about?

Our police here are armed, as are most police across the world. But the UK police have never been armed, which is why they have the special armed response teams. . Already they are ramping up security at all barracks in London. There will be more guards at airports, and railway stations. The killer who was ranting at the camera has a typical South London black accent; if I had hear him talking in a normal way I would have immediately placed him as being from the area, or possibly Lewisham. His reference to our lands is strange, especially with that accent; he looks to be of Jamaican origin. But who knows? Glad I am here, we have neo nazi problems but not bombings. As for what Cameron said, he meant the UK as a whole, nothing more, nothing less. LL

I know what Cameron meant, LL. But coming from a man who won't be going to war, or isn't likely to get chopped to death on the streets, is a bit cheeky.
My Grandfather fought in Afghanistan, and he's been dead for seventy years. And quite frankly, I don't care what happens to them. We are never going to win this one.
But the point is that Britain needs a quicker response.
There are always armed soldiers on Barrack Gate duty, so woe betide anyone who tries to get in. But we can't have them shooting civilians. Or can we? Will we, even?

I've given up trying to understand this world, ma petite, it's on its way to hell in a handbasket. I am glad to be here, in a quiet valley with nice neighbors and no crime - other than the odd chicken being snatched. There are two basic problems with man, religion and politics! I hate both, I want my kids and their kids to be safe, I don't hold with this poking one's nose into the affairs of other countries. I put it down to this concept of superpowers; when the Soviet Union collapsed there was no-one left to rein in the USA. Don't get me wrong, I spent many wonderful years in the US and made many friends,but the idea their leaders on both sides of the political spectrum that the USA is the greatest country in the world jars a lot with me. When the country one lives in becomes a paradise for all, no famine, no baby deaths, no killings, no homeless, no religious intolerance, no forced weddings and so on, then I feel one can start pointing out where other countries have gone wrong. Not demand change, but show them how to achieve it on their own terms. Slapping sanctions on a regime is not the answer, it merely exacerbates the problem. Demonising another man's religion leads to much sorrow. Rant over. LL

I do so agree, LL. About interfering, I mean. Although, of course, Hitler always springs to mind. But I very much doubt that Britain and eventually America, ever went to war to save The Jews, despite both having a pretty good idea of what was going on. No, it was all about Land. But then again, I don't know what I would have done. That maniac was bound to have come a cropper in the end anyway.
I have almost forgotten what Crime is. We only lose chickens to foxes around here. But I haven't forgotten being afraid to sleep alone at night, or to walk the streets on my own. Neither of which bother me here.

Don't tempt fate, sabot, bad things happen in pretty places too.

I don't think I've ever detested Cameron more than I do today. I nearly threw something through the TV screen when he was poncing around in France and wittering on about tax reform when a British soldier's blood was running down the street in the capital city of England.

Not give in to terror? They've just done it, by telling British servicemen not to wear their uniforms in public in Britain.

That piece of sh-t was right about something - Cameron and co aren't in any danger, they won't be attacked by scum in the street.

I know who's a threat to my rights in a democracy, and it isn't the young squaddie going out to buy a Big Mac or whatever the poor guy was doing.

I think I had better join muratfan in not saying much else.

Oh, and it seems the scumbag is of Nigerian descent, and a converted former Christian.

As far as I am aware, neither the UK nor the US is engaged in military action in Nigeria. But I can imagine the reaction if the Nigerian military were told not to wear their uniforms in public in case it upset an extremist minority.

bb1 wrote:Oh, and it seems the scumbag is of Nigerian descent, and a converted former Christian.

As far as I am aware, neither the UK nor the US is engaged in military action in Nigeria. But I can imagine the reaction if the Nigerian military were told not to wear their uniforms in public in case it upset an extremist minority.

Northern Nigeria is at this moment in time in a mess as the Boko Haram jihadists fight to turn the north into a strict Islamist sharia state. The south is predominately Christian, tho there are Christians in the north. It seems also mosques have been attacked in Essex and Kent. LL

No 'it seems' about it, LL, it was being quite openly being planned on fb and twitter last night.

I confidently predict Cameron is going to make an arse of this; his failure to show any kind of leadership is going to leave a vacuum, and God knows who is going to fill that vacuum.

Remember what he and his shiny-faced chums were like during the London riots - rabbits caught in the headlights.

I can see large chunks of the English cities lurching to the far-Right because of the government's failure to do anything besides witter; those two scumbags have opened the gates of Hell.

As for the people saying the photos shouldn't have been shown - yes, they damned well should be shown. Even if it upset people who would far rather watch Celebrity Dancing on Ice, or Jeremy Kyle, or similar junk TV.

I am very much aware of tempting fate, Bonny. But they are a nosey lot around here. Thankfully. There was a strange car parked across the road a while ago, and I had Gendarmes knocking on my door at 4am.

Cameron? Sick to death of him. And I wouldn't mind betting that if some passing stranger had walloped these two, they would be up on a charge.
Thank God I got out when I did.

Fervent: The two young women who had comforted the dead man speak to one of the killers while the 48-year-old Cub Leader speaks to the other in the 20 minutes before police arrived

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329236/Woolwich-attack--Moment-heroic-woman-tries-remonstrate-knife-wielding-soldier-killer-police-arrived-scene.html#ixzz2U6cG6Rkq
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Those three women have more courage in their little fingers than Cameron and his shower of shiny-faced public schoolboys have put together.

And they deserve a medal; even though it was too late to stop the attack, they didn't turn away and tell themselves it was nothing to do with them....