British police have identified two of the three men behind Saturday night’s terror attack in London as Khuram Shazad Butt and Rachid Redouane.
Butt, 27, was a British citizen who was born in Pakistan, London’s Metropolitan Police said. Police and MI5 — the UK’s counterintelligence and security agency — were familiar with him, but there was no intelligence to suggest the weekend attack was being planned, police said.
Redouane, 30, who also used the name Rachid Elkhdar, had claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan.
The third attacker has been identified, police said, but his name has not been publicly released.
The assailants killed seven people and wounded 48 others by ramming a vehicle into a crowd on London Bridge and then stabbing people in nearby Borough Market.
Photos: Forensic officers work at the scene of a terror attack at London Bridge in London on Sunday, June 4.
Police shot and killed all three of the attackers, who were wearing suicide belts that turned out to be fakes.
Twelve people were arrested following the attack. On Monday, Met Police said 10 of them were still being held.
British Prime Minister Theresa May faced a barrage of questions Monday on deep cuts made to police numbers in the UK while she was Home Secretary.
Authorities also faced scrutiny over what they knew about the alleged perpetrators of the attack.
The carnage is the third such terror attack on British soil in three months and the second in London involving the use of vehicles as weapons.
In March, 52-year-old British national Khalid Masood rammed a vehicle into a crowd on Westminster Bridge and stabbed a police officer, in an attack that left five people dead.
- Advertisement -
Counter-terrorism officers on Sunday near the scene of the attack.
Police said there would be “increased physical measures on London’s bridges to keep the public safe.” On Monday, concrete barricades had been erected to separate pedestrians from vehicles on some of the city’s major bridges.
May under fire over police cuts
Security had already become a battleground issue ahead of Thursday’s general election following the Manchester bombing last month, in which 22 people were killed as they left an Ariana Grande concert.
Pressure on May intensified Monday when she faced a volley of questions over police cuts from journalists at a campaign event. May insisted that her record was sound, saying that she had introduced a raft of anti-terror legislation as Home Secretary. She also said that funding for counter-terrorism efforts had been protected.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said Monday that the country needed to rethink police resourcing and strategy.
But May defended her government’s stance on the issue, saying that her Conservative government had protected police budgets.
“The commissioner of the Metropolitan police has said the Met is well resourced, and they are, and that they have very powerful counter-terrorism capabilities, and they do. We have protected counterterrorism policing budgets, we have also provided funding for the increase of the number of armed police officers,” she said at a campaign event.
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the main opposition party, called on May to resign over the issue, saying earlier that “you cannot protect the public on the cheap,” and promising to recruit another 10,000 police officers if he is elected into power.
Commuters walk across London Bridge on Monday after it partially re-opened following Saturday’s attack.
Victim identified
Meanwhile, one of the victims in Saturday’s attack was identified as Chrissy Archibald, a Canadian who had moved to Europe to be with her fiance.
London terror attack victim Chrissy Archibald (L).
Another 36 men and women are currently in hospital, 18 of whom are in a critical condition, according to NHS England.
A memorial is planned for 6 p.m. local time Monday in the capital’s Potters Field Park, as the city continues to digest its second attack in two months.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said Monday that the actions of the attackers were perverse and poisonous, adding that they had no place in Islam.
“The acts of these three men on Saturday night was cowardly, was evil and I’m angry and furious that these three men are using to justify their actions the faith that I belong to,” he said.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday night, although they provided no evidence for their involvement or details of the attack.
Neighbor saw attacker teaching children to pray
Police said they had seized a huge amount of forensic materials in two early morning raids in east London Monday, as part of their efforts to determine if the three men who carried out Saturday’s attack were part of a wider network.
Armed police stand guard in front of floral tributes on Southwark Street near the scene of the attack.
Details of the investigation had been kept closely under wraps, in stark contrast to last month’s Manchester bombing, when photos and information from the investigation were repeatedly leaked to the US media, triggering a row between the British and American governments.
Monday’s early morning raids follow raids on a housing complex in Barking east London on Sunday, where a series of arrests were made.
CNN’s Melissa Bell spoke to residents there who recognized a familiar face among the three dead attackers, identifying him as one of their neighbors and describing him as a family man who kept to himself.
- Advertisement -
Barking resident Erica Gasperri said she went to the police after she saw a man, believed to be the attacker, teaching the local children about Islam.
“All of a sudden we saw this individual speaking to the kids … showing them how to pray,” she said. “I could see them from my window.”
