Met Police say the three terrorists were shot dead in the Borough Market within eight minutes of Saturday night’s attack in the heart of London.<\/p>\n
“At this stage, we believe that six people have died in addition to the three attackers shot dead by police,” Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said.<\/p>\n
“And at least 20 casualties have been taken to six hospitals across London.”<\/p>\n
He said it was believed that only three terrorists were involved “but we’ve got more inquiries to do to be 100 per cent about that”.<\/p>\n
He said the suspects had been confronted and shot by the police within eight minutes of the first call at 10.08pm.<\/p>\n
The suspects were wearing what looked like explosive vests but these were later established to be hoaxes.<\/p>\n
Police rushed to the chaotic scene on Saturday night after reports a white van had plowed into pedestrians and shots were heard at nearby Burough Market.<\/p>\n
Asst Commissioner Rowley said the suspects left the vehicle and a stabbed number of people, including an on-duty British Transport Police officer.<\/p>\n
He received serious but not life-threatening injuries.<\/p>\n
The attacks come days ahead of Thursday’s election and less than two weeks after a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a pop concert by US singer Ariana Grande in Manchester. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.<\/p>\n
The BBC showed a photograph of two possible London attackers shot by police, one of whom had canisters strapped to his body.<\/p>\n
A Reuters reporter said some time after the attack began that he had heard loud bangs near the Borough Market area.
\n\tStreets around London Bridge and Borough Market, fashionable districts packed with bars and restaurants, were been busy with people on a Saturday night out. BBC showed dozens of people, evidently caught up in the attack, being escorted through a police cordon with their hands on their heads.<\/p>\n
Witnesses described a white van careering into pedestrians near London Bridge and knocking over several people.
\n\t“It looked like he was aiming for groups of people. I froze because I didn’t know what to do,” Mark Roberts, 53, a management consultant, told Reuters. He saw at least six people on the ground after the van veered on and off the pavement.<\/p>\n
“It was horrendous,” he said.<\/p>\n
A taxi driver told the BBC that three men got out of the van with long knives and “went randomly along Borough High Street stabbing people”.<\/p>\n
Witnesses said people ran into a bar to seek shelter.<\/p>\n
“People started running and screaming, and the van crashes into the railing behind. We went towards Borough Market and everyone went inside (the bar). Everyone in the bar started pushing people from the exits,” one witness who gave his name as Brian, 32, told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Islamic State earlier on Saturday sent out a call on instant messaging service Telegram urging its followers to launch attacks with trucks, knives and guns against “Crusaders” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.<\/p>\n
Similar attacks, in Berlin, Nice, Brussels and Paris, have been carried out by militants over the past couple of years.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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