Soldier killed in terror attack

A quote from the BBC page.

A man has been killed in a machete attack and two suspects shot by police in Woolwich, south-east London.

The Met Police said a murder inquiry was being led by its Counter Terrorism Command. Prime Minister David Cameron said the UK would "never buckle" in the face of terror attacks.

Footage has emerged showing a man wielding a bloodied meat cleaver and making political statements.

Police confirmed two men had been arrested in connection with the murder.

There are unconfirmed reports that the dead man was a soldier.

Both French President Francois Hollande and MP Nick Raynsford said the dead man had been a soldier at Woolwich barracks.

The footage shown on the ITV website shows a man, speaking to the camera, saying: "We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

He added: "I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don't care about you."

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You can view the video and further details on the matter at the link provided below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22630303

The murder is terrible and my condolences go out to the family of the soldier/victim. In the wider picture it just incites another round of racial hatred in the UK again, organisations like the EDL get more support and parties such as UKIP and the BNP will profit from the ignorant public simply due to the ethnicity of the murderer. Some of the things I've seen have been appalling on Facebook and even the page to honour the victim is operated by an obvious UKIP advocate.

It's a horrid crime but whether or not it's worse than any other random murder (in anything other than the sheer disrespect for the body post-murder) is certainly questionable. The real thing people should be upset about (in anything other than the usual sympathy for the murdered man and his family) is how others have reacted to it. So many people saying the killers should be "treated as they would in their own country" and claiming it was a terrorist attack etc etc. Not every murder between different ethnicities is politically motivated, people.

Murder in london. (not for the light hearted)

So i dont know if many of you are aware. But in london there was a brutal murder right out in broad daylight.

The Victim was wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt (a military charity for wounded British soldiers) he was a soldier himself.

Heres a snippit of what happened.
According to a statement from Metropolitan Police Commander Simon Letchford, police were called to an incident on John Wilson Street at 2:20 p.m. this afternoon. Eyewitness accounts, including from some who took to Twitter to report the attack, suggest that two men drove into the victim and then got out of the car to hack him with a machete. The two men then allegedly dragged his body into the middle of John Wilson Street before asking bystanders to photograph and film them.

Witness James Heneghan told radio station LBC 97.3 that he and his wife saw two men "hacking this poor guy, hacking him, chopping him." He said they "were oblivious to anything, they were more worried about having their photo taken, running up and down the road."

Footage (which may be distressing to some viewers) has emerged of one of the alleged attackers, carrying a meat cleaver and knife with bloodied hands, saying, "I apologize that women have had to witness this today, but in our land women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don't care about you."

Speculation that this is terrorism has been spurred by rumors, which BBC political editor Nick Robinson says have been repeated by senior Whitehall sources, that the attackers were heard saying "Allahu akbar [God is great]."

Some Twitter users who witnessed the scene have suggested that the assailants were perhaps on drugs. One user, Boya Dee, tweeted the following, which users on Reddit have edited for an American audience here:

I cant post the full story for site restrictions
But search it on google.

This makes me sick really.
And makes living in my own country feel a tad unsafe.
What do you guys think about this? terrorism has rarely infiltrated this part of the world. What with the bombing in manchester all those years ago.

I have friends up in london. It's a scary thought.
Terrorism has effected many from all over. This act only gives me worse vibes of the days to come.

Just share your opinions about this happening.

Ah i just posted about this!
I didnt see this topic sorry!
but seriously i can't believe this happened right out in broad daylight.
It to me feels like a message and im quite worried for this countries future.

What shocks me more is not a single person tried to stop them. i know they were armed and all that but i wouldnt have been able to sit and watch them slaughter that poor man.
He was a soldier. He fights for the country. and he has to be killed in his own by people like them.

It infuriates me!
AND OUR GOVERNMENT IS JUST AS GUILTY AS THEY ARE.
Because they (and im in no way a racist) have been letting people into this country for far too long. Not checking peoples backgrounds and affiliations.

This was a tragic event and many people are now scarred for life.
The attackers were even screaming to Alah.
Saying things like this is common in their country.

Well, that's the world we live in now, unfortunately. Acts of violence that are pretty much an every day occurrence in third world countries are slipping into our "pristine" first world, and people don't know what to do. When people develop such an apathy for the suffering of other peoples and cultures, the result is horrifying. Those cultures in turn strike out against their believed oppressors in a brutal and violent rage, so that they can be heard in the only language that they feel gets people's attention.

I just wish that Terror wasn't so effective.

I'll just merge this with the existing thread. Carry on!

Scary, but no different than the white Englishmen (I believe it was in England) who killed and robbed a teenaged boy during Ramadhan when he had left home to eat after the fast.

It's kinda sick but I can't even find the story online anymore and if I remember correctly, it made headlines. It was evening and the kid could finally eat (after fasting all day) and he was attacked by a group of caucasian men who killed him. Then, perhaps from an entirely unrelated party, another caucasian robbed the dying boy of his money and his iPod/iPhone. There was testimony and witnesses who did nothing to help the child other than, after the beating, call for an ambulance. (Which, to a degree, may be understandable given that the assailants were obviously dangerous.)

So how is that any different than this? That boy's country was England, too, but he was killed pretty much for going outside one day. It reminds me of that black kid who was killed in the US by the Z-w/e guy. He just went out to the corner store to buy some candy or something. He was shot basically because he was black.

This stuff happens all the time. It's not because he's a soldier killed on his own soil that it makes it more horrific or appalling. Someone's probably being murdered somewhere in the world right now - outside the war, that is - and we'll find who killed those people and serve them a cold plate of justice, too.

For now, all we can do is mourn and wonder what societal influences (or drug influences, as someone speculated above) may be the cause of such irrational behaviour. Given that they apologize to the women, it makes me feel that the assailants are against the war and are trying to show, in a rather crude and unfortunate way, what actually happens over there. Western / European society is very desensitized from these kinds of things due to TV so perhaps they thought by showing people first-hand what horrors actually occur (sometimes randomly, too: think WikiLeaks), they might be able to convince non-sheep individuals that, "Holy crap, so that's what [we] do?"

Definitely doesn't make it right. Probably made it worse, too. The majority of people are going to look on this and understandably justify the war even further lol

Ah, well. I wish the best for that man's family, in any case.

This is definitely disgusting. I wish things like this didn't happen, it just gives fuel for racial and religious hatred. Nevertheless, no one is to blame for his crime but him. Intolerance of his culture/beliefs did not force him to butcher another human being. He chose to do it, and he should be punished.

Okazaki~Tomoya said:

This makes me sick really.
And makes living in my own country feel a tad unsafe.
What do you guys think about this? terrorism has rarely infiltrated this part of the world. What with the bombing in manchester all those years ago.

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While it's not necessarily important for the topic, it's worth mentioning that the British Isles have probably been susceptible to much more terrorism than most countries in the 20th and 21st century in the western world.

Powerserge said:

Well, that's the world we live in now, unfortunately. Acts of violence that are pretty much an every day occurrence in third world countries are slipping into our "pristine" first world, and people don't know what to do. When people develop such an apathy for the suffering of other peoples and cultures, the result is horrifying. Those cultures in turn strike out against their believed oppressors in a brutal and violent rage, so that they can be heard in the only language that they feel gets people's attention.

I just wish that Terror wasn't so effective.

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This argument is regularly made by my friend. Its is one of the two logical points to draw from most terror attacks such as this - we don't care when it happens countries of other culture and people are quick to give ethnic minorities a stigma for the origin of the attacker (if he is not of the primary ethnicity nationwide). Both of these things are wrong and yet we seem to loop back round to them every time a terror attack happens (at least in this country).

There's an account from a woman who apparently spoke with the two men after the attack. She says they didn't appear to be on drugs or intoxicated or anything.

[article here]