{"id":10232,"date":"2013-05-24T03:35:10","date_gmt":"2013-05-24T10:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/?p=10232"},"modified":"2013-05-24T03:38:15","modified_gmt":"2013-05-24T10:38:15","slug":"2013-woolwich-ttck-by-muslim-anarchists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/2013-woolwich-ttck-by-muslim-anarchists\/","title":{"rendered":"2013 Woolwich @tt@ck by Muslim (A)narchists"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 22 May 2013 at approximately 14:20 local time, a man was run down by a car\u00a0before being stabbed and hacked to death by two men with knives and a meat cleaver.\u00a0They then dragged his body on to the road and waited for police to arrive, telling passers-by that they had attacked a soldier to avenge the killing of\u00a0Muslims<\/a>\u00a0by the British military.
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The killing took place on a street in\u00a0Woolwich<\/a>\u00a0in southeast London.\u00a0The dead man was identified as Lee Rigby, an off-dutybandsman<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0Royal Regiment of Fusiliers<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0British Army<\/a>.\u00a0The two alleged assailants were shot by police officers who arrived at the scene, and taken to hospital in serious condition.\u00a0Both men are native Londoners of\u00a0Nigerian descent<\/a>.\u00a0Politicians and religious leaders including those of the Muslim community condemned the attack.
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2013 Woolwich attack<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/a>
\nThe pub and the tower block on Wellington Street near the attack<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Location<\/th>\nWoolwich<\/a>,\u00a0Royal Borough of Greenwich<\/a>, London, England<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Date<\/th>\n22 May 2013
\n14:20\u00a0BST<\/a>\u00a0(UTC+01:00<\/a>)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Weapon(s)<\/th>\n\n
Deaths<\/th>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Injured (non-fatal)<\/th>\n2 (the suspects)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Suspected perpetrators<\/th>\nMichael Adebolajo
\nMichael Adebowale
\nMale and female alleged co-conspirators<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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The attack occurred at 14:20 in Wellington Street, near its junction with John Wilson Street, part of the\u00a0South Circular Road<\/a>\u00a0(A205) in Woolwich.\u00a0Drummer<\/a>\u00a0Lee Rigby, a soldier of the 2nd Battalion of the\u00a0Royal Regiment of Fusiliers<\/a>, was off duty at the time and reportedly wearing a “Help for Heroes<\/a>” T-shirt.\u00a0He is believed to have been deliberately hit by a Vauxhall car,\u00a0then attacked by two men with knives and a meat cleaver.\u00a0Women later stood over the body of the man, trying to protect him from further attack.\u00a0The attackers, who were 22 and 28 years old,\u00a0later stood around, waving knives and a gun, and asked people to take pictures of them. Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, a passenger on a passing bus, was one of the first people on the scene. While the two men were awaiting a police response, Loyau-Kennett tended to the victim, who later died. She engaged in a conversation with the attackers, one of whom said to her: “We want to start a war in London tonight.” She asked the men to hand over their weapons, which they refused.
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Victim<\/h3>\n
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The victim, Lee Rigby<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The soldier killed in the attack was later named as 25-year-old Lee Rigby of the 2nd Battalion of the\u00a0Royal Regiment of Fusiliers<\/a>. Rigby, from\u00a0Middleton, Greater Manchester<\/a>,\u00a0had served in Cyprus, Germany\u00a0and\u00a0Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0before becoming a recruiter and assisting with duties in the\u00a0Tower of London<\/a>. He had a two-year-old son.
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The attackers waited for 15 to 20 minutes for armed police to arrive and reportedly danced over the body, while one of the men asked passengers on a bus to take photographs of him.[10]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0When armed police arrived, the man with the machete charged at police and was shot by a female officer, while the other did the same with a gun and was also felled by police marksmen.\u00a0Channel 4 News<\/a><\/i>\u00a0had broadcast footage showing the two perpetrators having shouted “Allahu Akbar<\/a>“.\u00a0The\u00a0MP<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Greenwich and Woolwich<\/a>\u00a0Nick Raynsford<\/a>\u00a0said that the victim was a soldier at the nearby\u00a0Royal Artillery Barracks<\/a>.\u00a0He also said: “The situation is clearly a very very serious one indeed. One individual is dead and two others are seriously injured and apparently in hospital.”\u00a0The Guardian<\/a><\/i>\u00a0newspaper reported that the Ministry of Defence was frustrated with the comment as it would have preferred to have told the family of the victim before the media.\u00a0The attack took place 300 to 400 metres (980 to 1,300 ft) from the barracks perimeter.
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A gun, knives and a machete were later seized at the scene. Police officers, including firearms officers who arrived later, were at the scene. The victim was later pronounced dead.
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Suspects<\/h3>\n

One of the attackers, who was captured on video by a passer-by, said:<\/p>\n

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 a\u00a0eye for an eye<\/a>\u00a0and a tooth for a tooth. By\u00a0Allah<\/a>, we swear by the Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. So what if we want to live by the\u00a0Sharia<\/a>\u00a0in Muslim lands. Why does that mean you must follow us and chase us and call us extremists and kill us? Rather you lot are extreme. You are the ones. When you drop a bomb, do you think it hits one person or rather your bomb wipes out a whole family. This is the reality. By Allah, if I saw your mother today with a buggy I would help her up the stairs. This is my nature. But we are forced by the Qur’an in Sura\u00a0at-Tawba<\/a>\u00a0[Chapter 9 of the Qur’an], through many, many ayah [verses] throughout the Qur’an that [say] we must fight them as they fight us, a eye for a eye and a tooth for a tooth. I apologise that women had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your governments. They don\u2019t care about you. Do you think David Cameron is gonna get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? Do you think the politicians are going to die? No it’s going to be the average guy, like you, and your children. So get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back so we ca.., so you can all live in peace. Leave our lands and you will live in peace. That’s all I have to say. Allah’s peace and blessings be upon Muhammad.
\n<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Both of the men have been confirmed as\u00a0Londoners of Nigerian descent<\/a>. One man has been named as Michael Adebolajo, a 28-year-old, born in\u00a0Lambeth<\/a>, London, of Nigerian descent.[7]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0He studied sociology at the\u00a0University of Greenwich<\/a>\u00a0and converted from Christianity to\u00a0Islam<\/a>.\u00a0The other was named as Michael Adebowale.
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Two additional persons, a man and a woman, were arrested on 23 May on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.
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Response<\/h2>\n

In addition to condemning the attack, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner\u00a0Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe<\/a>\u00a0called for calm and a “measured response” while adding “we have met with community representatives, and extra officers remain on duty there tonight. Across London our officers are in contact with their communities too.” Simon Letchford, a\u00a0Metropolitan Police<\/a>\u00a0Commander, later issued a statement that read: “I can understand that this incident will cause community concerns, and I would like to reiterate that we are investigating what has taken place today. … I am asking people to remain calm, and avoid unnecessary speculation.”
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The Prime Minister\u00a0David Cameron<\/a>\u00a0cut short a visit to Paris to chair a\u00a0COBRA<\/a>\u00a0meeting.\u00a0The\u00a0Ministry of Defence<\/a>\u00a0issued a statement that it was urgently investigating the incident. The\u00a0Home Secretary<\/a>\u00a0Theresa May<\/a>\u00a0subsequently chaired a meeting of the COBRA committee.\u00a0The COBRA meeting was attended by the Defence Secretary\u00a0Philip Hammond<\/a>, the Mayor of London\u00a0Boris Johnson<\/a>, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner\u00a0Cressida Dick<\/a>\u00a0and other unnamed members of the intelligence agencies.
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After Cameron’s arrival, a second COBRA meeting was held, following which he said:<\/p>\n

This country will be absolutely resolute in its stand against extremism and terror. This action was a betrayal of Islam and the Muslim communities that give so much to our country. We will defeat violent extremism by standing together. We will not rest until we know every detail. [The attackers told Ingrid Loyau-Kennett that] they wanted to start a war in London and she replied, ‘you are going to lose, it is you against many. She speaks for all of us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The London mayor Boris Johnson speculated that it was “overwhelmingly likely” to have been a terror attack.
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Queen Elizabeth II<\/a>\u00a0was said to be “concerned” by the report of the attack.\u00a0The Deputy Prime Minister\u00a0Nick Clegg<\/a>,\u00a0the Home Secretary Theresa May\u00a0and the Leader of the Opposition\u00a0Ed Miliband<\/a>\u00a0condemned the attack.<\/sup>
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The\u00a0British National Party<\/a>\u00a0leader\u00a0Nick Griffin<\/a>\u00a0posted a series of\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0messages blaming “mass immigration” for the attack and calling for a protest rally in Woolwich.\u00a0After the\u00a0English Defence League<\/a>\u00a0called on its supporters to mobilise,\u00a0the same evening over 100\u00a0of its members staged a protest at\u00a0Woolwich Arsenal station<\/a>\u00a0in which bottles were thrown at police. Individuals were also arrested in two separate incidents at mosques in Essex and Kent. Speaking in response to the incidents, Julie Siddiqi of the\u00a0Islamic Society of Britain<\/a>\u00a0expressed fears the far-right would use the attack as a way of creating community divisions.\u00a0An additional 1,200 police officers were deployed across London to prevent revenge attacks on minority communities.
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Religious leaders expressed their concern: the\u00a0Bishop of Woolwich<\/a>\u00a0the Rt. Rev. Dr Michael Ipgrave said he was “deeply saddened and distressed”.\u00a0Muslim leaders denounced the attack:\u00a0the\u00a0Muslim Council of Britain<\/a>\u00a0said the attack “has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly”;\u00a0the head of the\u00a0Ramadhan Foundation<\/a>\u00a0Mohammed Shafiq<\/a>also condemned the attack;\u00a0and the director of\u00a0Faith Matters<\/a>\u00a0and co-ordinator of the government-backed anti-Islamophobic project “Tell MAMA” said: “We as the Muslim community will work against anyone who promotes such hatred.”\u00a0Baroness Neville-Jones<\/a>, a former security minister and chairman of the\u00a0British Joint Intelligence Committee<\/a>, and Colonel\u00a0Richard Kemp<\/a>, a former Army commander, suggested blame could be put on internet hate preaching.<\/strong> Neville-Jones told the\u00a0BBC Radio 4<\/a>‘s\u00a0Today<\/a><\/i>\u00a0programme that “the inspiration that comes from internet hate preaching and jihadist rhetoric … is a very, very serious problem now.”<\/strong>
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The\u00a0BBC News<\/a>\u00a0political editor\u00a0Nick Robinson<\/a>\u00a0quoted a government source that had described the perpetrators as being “of Muslim appearance” during the 22 May edition of the\u00a0BBC News at Six<\/a><\/i>. The BBC received 43 complaints after Robinson used the term; it was also picked up by other media outlets. Robinson issued the apology the following morning.
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Asghar Bukhari<\/a>, of the UK Muslim Public Affairs Committee, said the British government was “completely denying that it has anything to do with the political situation around the Muslim world”.
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In an interview with\u00a0Reuters<\/a>, the British Islamist\u00a0Anjem Choudary<\/a>\u00a0assigned blame for the attack to British foreign policy, stating that the assailant “said it all in that clip…. He blamed Cameron and he blamed the army and the authorities, and he said that British public should do something about it because they’re not doing anything in their names. From the statements that he’s made himself, it’s clear that that was being targeted. The cause is clear \u2013 it’s the British foreign policy.”
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Although the British MP\u00a0George Galloway<\/a>\u00a0stated that the attacks were “indefensible”, he\u00a0tweeted<\/a>\u00a0that it was “exactly what we are paying the same kind of people to do in Syria.”\u00a0In an interview with Russia Today, Brian Becker, the national coordinator of the anti-war coalition\u00a0ANSWER<\/a>, agreed that British foreign policy towards the Middle East had created an “escalating cycle of violence.” Becker also stated that “The British colonial past and its current legacy of intervention and war is undoubtedly a factor” in the motivations behind the attack.
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Investigation<\/h2>\n

The\u00a0Independent Police Complaints Commission<\/a>\u00a0said that it would investigate the incident as per normal circumstances. The IPCC investigate any incident in which police discharge a weapon.\u00a0Investigators said that they were searching six houses: three houses in Greenwich, south London; one house in Romford, east London; another house in north London and a property in Lincoln in central England.
\n<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 22 May 2013 at approximately 14:20 local time, a man was run down by a car\u00a0before being stabbed and hacked to death by two men with knives and a meat cleaver.\u00a0They then dragged his body on to the road … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10232"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10250,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10232\/revisions\/10250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}