Another terrorist attack in London

[Groff]

Seven people have been killed and at least 48 injured in central London after three men drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and launched a knife attack on people enjoying a Saturday night out in pubs and restaurants around Borough Market.

A white van hit pedestrians on London Bridge at about 22:00 BST on Saturday, then three men got out and stabbed people in nearby Borough Market.

One witness, Gerard, told the BBC he saw a woman being stabbed "10 or 15 times" by men shouting "This is for Allah".

The three suspects were shot dead within eight minutes of the first 999 call being received.

Mrs May said the UK's counter-terrorism strategy would be reviewed, as she promised to step up efforts to combat Islamist ideology and work with other countries to prevent the internet being a "safe space" for terrorists.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40148737
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40147164

Third attack in a span of three months. Absolutely horrible.

 

[Kyriakos]

This is a failure of the government; they did fire 20K policemen, so it wouldn't be likely that safety level would not be diminished.

 

[dutchfire]

Frankly, I think the police service did quite well. From the reports, it seems that all three attackers were neutralised in 8 minutes.
That cars and knives are the best weapons they could get their hands on is also positive.

 

[FriendlyFire]

D:

Not again, were they Pakistani's ?

 

[Kyriakos]

Cars/knives likely means this is not a very organized attack in the first place, given virtually anyone has access to those. Also not seeing how it is a success to "neutralize" them instead of, you know, arresting and interrogating them? Assuming all they had were car/knive, those can be sort of taken out somewhat easily. Plus it would really help to arrest them and thus know for a fact what they were, instead of the usual charade to follow now.

 

[luiz]

Frankly, I think the police service did quite well. From the reports, it seems that all three attackers were neutralised in 8 minutes.
That cars and knives are the best weapons they could get their hands on is also positive.

Agreed. It's incredibly hard to stop this kind of improvised attack by people who don't mind dying (in fact they yearn for their 40 virgins or whatever).

The police in most cases has done a good job, as have intelligence services.

But yeah, awful news.

 

[Groff]

Frankly, I think the police service did quite well. From the reports, it seems that all three attackers were neutralised in 8 minutes.
That cars and knives are the best weapons they could get their hands on is also positive.

From what I've read they use cars and knifes because they have been instructed to do so.

The shift towards knives and cars was something that the group had encouraged in part as it realized that making bombs is difficult and prone to failure. Telling your aspirant warriors to keep it simple seems a more effective way to ensure success..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...bombs-will-always-central-terrorist-thinking/

 

[Commodore]

This is a failure of the government; they did fire 20K policemen, so it wouldn't be likely that safety level would not be diminished.

Not to mention they don't take reports of suspicious person's seriously. If someone tries to notify the police about something or someone suspicious, they just get lectured by the police about being racist.

 

[red_elk]

Police did well with quick reaction, but failed to prevent it.

Strange, why people raised their hands:

Spoiler :

?

 

[Commodore]

Police did well with quick reaction, but failed to prevent it.

Strange, why people raised their hands:

Spoiler :

?

They assume that position so the police know they aren't a threat

 

[red_elk]

May be, just haven't seen such behavior before.

 

[Commodore]

May be, just haven't seen such behavior before.

That's because it's the type of behavior you usually see in counter-insurgency environments. The fact that we are now seeing it on the streets of London speaks volumes to the state of things in the UK right now.

 

[dutchfire]

From what I've read they use cars and knifes because they have been instructed to do so.

The use of more primitive attacks is probably caused by the fact that the intelligence services are keeping a much closer eye at the moment. This makes it risky to set up elaborate plots with many accomplices without getting caught.

The media impact of 'small' attacks with <10 deaths is also comparable with the media coverage of larger attacks (~100 deaths), so from a media POV it doesn't make much sense to invest a lot in a riskier, high casualty plan.

A third factor is that many of the more recent attacks have been perpetrated by recent immigrants/people with residency status. They'll have fewer assets and skills than, say, the original Al Qaida that consisted of many university graduates. This probably makes it harder to do things like setting up a bomb lab or doing a lot of reconaisance.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm going to point out that an ideology that can convince handfuls of people at a time to engage in irrational evil is actually a different tier of ideology that can occasionally convince an individual to be proactively evil. The underlying memetics used by ISIS propaganda are turning out to be a different brand of scary.

 

[EnglishEdward]

They assume that position so the police know they aren't a threat

Precisely Cressida Rose Dick is back in charge and they do not want to experience the fate of Jean Charles de Menezes.

 

[aelf]

Not to mention they don't take reports of suspicious person's seriously. If someone tries to notify the police about something or someone suspicious, they just get lectured by the police about being racist.

And this is based on...?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This demonstrates the ineffectiveness of cars as weapons. Six dead? We kill a hundred a day with cars in the USA without even trying.

And this is based on...?

Reports throughout the Alt-Right media echo chamber. It is one of those things that "everyone knows" except the stupid lib'ruls.

 

[Disgustipated]

This is a failure of the government; they did fire 20K policemen, so it wouldn't be likely that safety level would not be diminished.

The police are at fault? Really? The police neutralized the targets in 8 minutes. That's pretty damn good. The problem is Islamic extremism. Why do people go out of their way to blame the wrong group of people? It's victim blaming.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The police are at fault? Really? The police neutralized the targets in 8 minutes. That's pretty damn good. The problem is Islamic extremism. Why do people go out of their way to blame the wrong group of people? It's victim blaming.

Actually, it is motivated by the desire for a police state. Consider, what would the government really have to do to avoid such "failures"? Kill all the Muslims wouldn't really work, because there could be (actually are) non-Muslim terrorists. Bottom line, it's remove all the cars and knives, or at least restrict access to such dangerous devices to a select group...which coincidentally always includes the person blathering about the "failure."

 

[Ryika]

Reports throughout the Alt-Right media echo chamber. It is one of those things that "everyone knows" except the stupid lib'ruls.

In a recent case in Germany, a man called the police about his girlfriend being raped by a black man with a machete. The first thing the woman at the telephone did, was ask him whether he's trolling her, and after he told her that he's not, she said that she'll send a few officiers. That's where the call was ended by the woman, she didn't tell him what to do, so he stood there, not knowing whether he should go help his girlfriend or not risk his own life, or whatever.

Clearly, she's either a completely incompetent idiot who doesn't know how to react when a rape is being reported, or she's a completely incompetent idiot who didn't believe him.

Such cases are rather rare of course, and not the default as which some people try to paint them, but they do exist.