The Islamic State claimed responsibility for London stabbing attack that left three people injured
The Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility Monday for the knife attack in London over the weekend that left three people injured.
Sudesh Amman, 20, strapped on a fake bomb and stabbed two people on a busy London street Sunday before being shot and killed by police. Investigators say a third person suffered injuries believed to have been caused by broken glass when responding officers opened fire.
“The perpetrator of the attack in Streatham district in south London yesterday is a fighter of Islamic State, and carried out the attack in response to calls to attack the citizens of coalition countries,” a statement posted by ISIS’ Amaq news agency read, according to Reuters.
Amman had been recently released from prison. Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lucy D’Orsi said he served time after being convicted of publishing graphic terrorist videos online and stockpiling instructions on bomb-making and knife attacks.
Officers had been trailing Amman at the time of Sunday’s attack, D’Orsi said, but were unable to head off the bloodshed in the commercial and residential south London neighborhood of Streatham, where Amman struck outside a major pharmacy.
British officials are now set to announce new rules Monday for the imprisonment of convicted terrorists following Amman’s attack and a similar stabbing last year carried out by another man who had served prison time for terrorism offenses. None of the victims in Amman’s attack suffered life-threatening injuries, while the Nov. 29 stabbings near London Bridge left two dead.
The government said it will effectively stop the early release of convicted extremists, double terror sentences and overhaul the conditions under which they are released back into the community, according to the Associated Press.
More than 70 people found guilty of terror offenses have been released in Britain after serving time, the news agency adds, while there are more than 200 others convicted of the same offenses still in the prison system.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said Sunday’s attack was clearly foreseeable in the wake of the London Bridge murders.
“One of the questions I’ve got for the government is what are we doing about those 70-odd people who have been released from prison?” he asked.
The former head of U.K. counterterrorism policing, Mark Rowley, told the BBC that “one of the challenges for the prime minister and his team is how much he can look back and amend the rules for people already serving sentences.”
“Legally that’s very, very difficult,” Rowley said. “But if there are many, many coming out on regimes that we no longer think work, is it possible to change that?”
Rowley added that unless the current law is changed, “police and security services are going to have many, many more cases that they are prioritizing.”
Source: Fox News
