ISIS claims responsibility for London stabbing attack
ISIS on Monday claimed responsibility for a 20-year-old ex-con’s stabbing attack that injured three people in London, according to a report.
“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,” according to a statement carried by the terror group’s Amaq news agency, Reuters reported.
Sudesh Amman, who was shot dead by police Sunday, had previously praised ISIS, shared an online al Qaeda magazine and encouraged his girlfriend to behead her parents.
He was jailed for possessing and distributing terrorist documents in December 2018 and was released from prison after serving half of his 40-month sentence.
The Islamist, who remained under police surveillance, had been staying at a bail hostel for the past two weeks, the UK’s Standard reported.
During the attack, he had what appeared to be an explosive device strapped to his body, but it was later discovered to be a fake, according to the BBC.
Three people were taken to hospitals, including two stabbing victims, a woman in her 50s and a man in his 40s. The man’s condition was initially considered to be life-threatening, but that is no longer the case. The woman has been discharged.
Another woman, in her 20s, suffered minor injuries believed to have been caused by glass following the gunshots.
Scotland Yard said officers were searching residential addresses in south London and Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire.
On Monday, cops were seen cordoning off a hostel in Streatham, where the manager said Amman had been living.
“I didn’t have much to do with him. Everyone has their own rooms in there. The last time I saw him I was doing his radiator, setting up his heating on Friday. He didn’t speak much,” the manager told the BBC.
Amman’s mother, Haleema Faraz Khan, said she had visited her son Thursday, when he seemed “normal,” and that they spoke on the phone a few hours before the attack.
She fought back tears as she told Sky News that her “polite and lovely boy” had been “brainwashed” by material he saw online and further radicalized by his time in a high-security lockup in London.
The Met Police, whose Counter Terrorism Command officers are leading the probe, said no arrests had been made and “inquiries continue at pace.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said there were about “70 plus” people convicted of terrorism offenses who had been released. He called for reassurances from the government that they were being “properly punished and reformed.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government would announce fundamental changes in dealing with people convicted of terrorism offenses, adding he had come “to the end of my patience” with freeing offenders before they had completed their sentences.
“I think the idea of automatic early release for people who obviously continue to pose a threat to the public has come to the end of its useful life,” he said in a speech.
“We do think it’s time to take action to ensure that people — irrespective of the law that we’re bringing in — people in the current stream do not qualify automatically for early release.”
With Post wires