Soldier killed with a knife in terror attack

A British soldier was run over, knifed and killed in Woolwich, London, yesterday afternoon. 

Eyewitness accounts claim the victim was hit by a car, and then stabbed by a tall local black man who has been identified as Michael Adebolajo, with the help of another unidentified black man. 

Police confirmed the victim, named as 25-year-old husband and father of one, Lee Rigby, was a soldier who served in Afghanistan and was stationed at the barracks in Woolwich.

Armed and non-armed police and an air ambulance were called to the scene. Police shot Adebolajo and his accomplice; both are now in hospital in a critical state.

A video filmed from a bus has surfaced at The Sun showing Adebolajo saying: “The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers and this British soldier is one – is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 

Adebolajo then praised Allah and swore: “By the Almighty Allah; we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone – so what if we want to live by the Sharia [Muslim law] in Muslim land?  Why does that mean you must follow us and chase us and call us extremists and kill us – rather you lot are extreme!”

He continued to the bus of onlookers who were filming: “When you drop a bomb do you think it picks one person? Or rather your bomb wipes out a whole family? […] you people will never be safe, remove your governments; they don’t care about you […] leave our land and you will live in peace.” 

A Police spokesman said in response to the “terrible murder,” an investigation led by the Counter Terrorist Command has been launched and two arrests made, urging people to give the police “the opportunity to thoroughly investigate this crime”.

Cub Scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett talked to Adebolajo shortly after he killed the soldier, and told The Telegraph: “He was really upset and angry [he said] the British army and American army is killing Muslim women and children […] it is a war.”

Prime minister David Cameron responded by calling the incident an “absolutely sickening attack, the most appalling crime” and affirmed that “people in every community, I believe, will utterly condemn this attack. We have had these sorts of attacks before in our country and we never buckle in the face of them”.

Lucy Woods