British police announced today that they had killed a man who stabbed and seriously wounded two people in the Stretham area, south of London, and the police described the act as a terrorist. A police spokeswoman said that the situation is still not completely clear, and that the identity of the man and his motive has not been revealed so far.
Footage from inside a store on the opposite side of the scene showed a man lying on the ground, and in the background at least two armed policemen, pointing their weapons towards him from behind an unmarked vehicle indicating that it was a police car.
Armed police cordoned off the area on the main shopping street of Stretham, a densely populated residential area south of the Thames and helicopters overflew the area, and police said people should avoid going to this area now.
Witnesses
An eyewitness said he saw a man carrying a dagger in the Stretham area, and the witness, a 19-year-old student, told British Press Association that he saw "a man with a dagger being chased by someone who was assumed to be an undercover policeman, since he was in civilian clothes."
On the other hand, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) this evening quoted witnesses that the bomber was carrying something around his torso, similar to an explosive belt, and pictures of that were circulated on social media.
Britain has witnessed in recent years a wave of terrorist attacks, the last of which was on November 29, 2019 when Osman Khan, a terrorist convict who was released in December 2018, killed two people stabbed in an attack on the London Bridge.