Add Category
Updated
Police in London say they have shot dead three men who killed at least six people in a vehicle and knife attack on Saturday night revellers on and around London Bridge.
Key points:
- Van drove into pedestrians on London Bridge, people stabbed at nearby Borough Market
- More than 30 people were taken to hospital
- Attack being treated as "terrorist incident" by police
A van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge just after 10:00pm (local time) and continued to the nearby Borough Market, where the three men got out and started stabbing people in bars and restaurants.
Police said the three perpetrators were shot dead within eight minutes of the start of the attack.
At least six people were killed in the attack. More than 30 people were taken to hospital, the ambulance service said.
Several witnesses in the area reported seeing victims with their throats cut.
London's Metropolitan Police declared the situation "terrorist incidents". London's Mayor Sadiq Khan described it as a "deliberate and cowardly attack".
'Explosive vests' were fake, police say
Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said there would be extra police deployed across the capital over coming days, and the force's Counter Terrorism Command has launched a full investigation.
A photo posted on social media showed what appeared to be a man lying on the ground with a canister strapped to his body and police officers standing over him. Another man lay on the ground in the background.
Police said while the suspects were wearing what looked like explosive vests, these were later established to be fake.
Video showed police officers storming into a Borough Market bar and screaming at diners to get on the ground, and people in a pub taking cover as gunshots rang out in the street outside.
Members of the public were led away with their hands on their heads, and people were being treated as they lay bleeding on the ground.
Man helped woman lying 'in a puddle of blood'
Brian, a witness who spoke to the ABC at London Bridge, said he left a bar in the area after the Champions League final and heard a lot of screaming.
"We started seeing people on the [ground]. We saw a crashed van," he said.
"I know there was more than 10 bodies on the [ground]. If I had been there 30 seconds before, I probably would have been in the middle of it."
Brian said as soon as he got to the scene, he helped a woman on the ground while a man continued attacking other people.
"The woman that I mostly helped, she just went very pale. She was in a puddle of blood," he said.
Brian said as he was helping the woman, a man was attacking people in nearby bars and the restaurants.
"I didn't see the attacker … all I saw was the police or dead bodies on the floor," he said.
A different eyewitness, Gerard, told the BBC he was caught up in the commotion while at a Borough Market pub.
"When I first saw them they went 'this is for Allah' and stabbed this girl, I don't know how many times — 10 times, maybe 15 times — and she was going 'help, help me!' and I could not do nothing," he said.
"I tried to help her, I threw something at them … to frighten them, to get them away from her."
'At least three' victims had their throats cut
There were multiple witness reports of throats being cut.
A witness who was on London Bridge after the attack told Reuters that she saw at least three people who appeared to have their throats cut.
A different witness in the Borough Market area told CNN that two men entered a restaurant and stabbed two people inside. They said a waitress was stabbed in the throat and a man was stabbed in the back
Three major hospitals located within two kilometres of London Bridge said they were on lockdown after the attacks.
"Due to the ongoing incident in central London, Guy's, St Thomas' and [Evelina London Children's Hospital] are on lockdown to keep patients, relatives and staff safe," the authority that runs the hospitals said on Twitter.
Trump uses attack to promote travel ban
Earlier Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she had spoken to Australia's High Commissioner to London and there are no reports of any Australians hurt or injured at this stage.
"It's too early to say whether this is a terrorist incident or what is occurring, although I have to say we have seen this pattern before, including the Westminster Bridge attack earlier this year," she said.
Ms May was chairing a meeting of the Government's emergency response committee COBRA, Downing Street said.
US President Donald Trump took to Twitter as events unfolded, offering help to Britain and promoting his travel ban as an extra level of security for Americans.
The incident comes just days before a general election, with polls suggesting the lead of Ms May's Conservative Party has dropped sharply.
It also comes less than two weeks after a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a concert by US singer Ariana Grande in Manchester.
In March four people were killed in an attack on Westminster Bridge, when a speeding car ran down pedestrians before the driver got out and fatally stabbed a police officer.
The Manchester bombing on May 22 was the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, when four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on London's transport network.
ABC/wires
Topics: police, crime, united-kingdom
First posted