ISIS Claims Latest Attack in London
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack that killed seven people in London on Saturday night.
London Bridge was targeted last Saturday, June 3, by attackers who ran a white van over pedestrians and stabbed people in bars in Borough Market, CNN reported. Forty-eight civilians were sent to the hospital, while seven people have been confirmed dead from the attack.
SITE Intelligence Group reported that ISIS is claiming responsibility for the attack in London Bridge.
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The Islamic State's official Amaq News Agency reported a message on Telegram last Sunday stating that the attack was executed by ISIS.
The message reports, "Security source to 'Amaq Agency: A detachment of Islamic State fighters carried out the London attacks yesterday.'"
Sources tell the network that the attack might have been planned several months ahead. The root of the attack might be caused by an ISIS message that urged their followers to kill civilians during Ramadan.
Matt Olsen, former director of National Counterterrorism Center said (as quoted by Yahoo News), "They usually use these messages to simply inspire people to carry out attacks whenever the opportunity arises." The goal of these messages is to push as many ISIS followers possible to execute an attack.
Police have arrested 12 people who are suspected to have connections with the dead terrorist, who wore a false bomb vest during the attack in London. The attack was meant to cause panic, but also lure in police responders and make it look like an act of martyrdom to the public eye.
The attacker with the fake bomb vest was identified by his neighbors as Pakistani, a father of two, one of his sons not yet born. Some of his neighbors described the attacker as radical, and that he complained a lot about his local mosque.
"He said it was not a good mosque. It was not following the Muslim religion categories," said one neighbour.
An anonymous neighbor shared that a lot of them called authorities to address the attacker before the incident in London Bridge. However, authorities did not address their concerns.
Michael Clarke, a UK counterterrorist expert, shared, "There are 500 ongoing active investigations the Security Services are carrying out, and that covers the three thousand people of interest plus others that they may not want to add into the list while they're still subject to these ongoing investigations."
