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On November 29th 2019, a man and a woman were brutally killed amid an islamist terrorist knife attack in London, England. Two other people were also injured in the attack. The attack represents the first deadly terrorist plot in the United Kingdom since 2017, when separate attacks in March, May, and June 2017 killed 35 people.
In footage captured by cellphone, civilians can be seen wrestling with the Islamist attacker, who is lying on the ground, before being pulled to safety by police arriving at the scene. Moments later officers can be seen opening fire, killing the attacker after it was revealed he was weaing a hoax suicide bomb vest.
However, following the attack it was revealed that the terrorist, Usman Khan, had been known to officials prior to the deadly attack. According to reports, Khan was among nine others, in three cities, who were arrested in 2010 and ultimately convicted for their role in an Al Qaeda plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange.
Additionally, the MI5 had also disrupted Khan’s plans to establish a training camp and inside of the disputed region of Kashmir, along the border of Pakistan and India. This region represents an ongoing and growing risk for the rise of new radial islamist groups capable of plotting attacks against the West. Officials say that Khan, an ethnic Pakistani, had attempted to use a madrassa on his family’s land in Kashmir to finance the network and to train others with the goal of making them “more serious and effective terrorists.” Those convicted were accused of attending operational meetings, fundraising and preparing to travel abroad to “engage in training for acts of terrorism.”
