Anyone else keeping up with this machete attack in London?

I didn't see any other topics about this. But is anyone else watching this thing about a machete attack in London, Woolwich to be precise, because this incident is sounding pretty messed up.

Story short, it appears that a man (possibly a soldier) got run over by two individuals, who got out the car and attacked him with machetes. They stayed at the scene until they were later shot by armed police. One confirmed dead (assumed to be the victim) and two injured (assumed to be the attackers).

Reading up on this other the past couple of hours has seriously unnerved me. Looking at one aerial shot of the area of this attack really didn't leave much to the imagination. This happen about 14:20, down the road from a primary school, just before schools finished, in broad daylight and in front of countless witnesses. I haven't mentioned the rumoured details of the actual attack because A) they are unconfirmed and B) because its quite disturbing.

I know horrible stuff like this happens all around the world, but this incident really serves as a grim reminder of how violently messed up people can be.

Here's a link, if you want more details as this develops: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22630303

Edit: Oh and this has developed into a suspected terror attack while I was typing this up.

Yikes. Sounds like a targeted attack though. Machetes and what not to send some kind of gangland message - it will probably come out that they are members of an organized crime group of some sort.

I heard something about an attack earlier but didn't think much of it cause....attacks happen but this sounds strange

Guess the talk at the moment is that it is an Islamist attack. If so, than it's a sensitive situation there. Tragic for the death of the soldier.

http://www.lbc.co.uk/listen-woolwich-eyewitness-describes-attack-72446

"We swear by Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reasons we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth. We apologise that women had to see this today but in our lands our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don't care about you."

- Quote from one of the perpetrators, at the scene of the crime.

There's disturbing video on this link. Shows the body so be aware of that: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/22/police-respond-serious-incident-woolwich

Apparently these utter fuckwits drove a car into a guy wearing a "Help the Heroes' t-shirt, a popular UK charity for helping veteran soldiers injured in Afgahnistan and Iraq, then beheaded him in front of everyone around.

They then filmed what was in that video. Or some twat member of the public filmed it. Don't know.

Horrific. I work in London and although we have gang problems like any large city, they generally don't go to the lengths to make themselves martyrs or publicise themselves like this, so this is very out of the ordinary.

Man, 2013 is leading up to be one of the most violent and terrifying years.

The worst of this is it's playing into a time that a far-right anti-immigration and EU party like UKIP is gaining popularity in this country. It's easy for people to forget this is a tiny but very public and horrible attack in a very diverse area of London. It's pretty horrible reading the racist and reactionary stuff going on in social media at the moment. Two nutters don't represent an entire race or religion but seems a lot of people like to take that view.

@superllamafarmer: Yeah it was bad here after 9/11 honest peaceful Muslims were singled out by a lot of very racist idiots who couldn't look at the bigger picture

@demoskinos: Yeah it's easy for people to forget the vast majority of people of any religion are peaceful and cool. But you'll always get a fringe of nutters who don't adhere to the 'don't kill people FFS' stuff that is in every religion and interpret bits of it as a free pass to air their grievances. Poverty, ignorance and injustice breed that. Sadly if you listen to the guy in the video you quickly get the impression he's really dumb and deluded.

First time I've ever heard of an attack like this in almost 12 years of the war on terror in the UK.

I suppose the only question is, "why now?" Support for these wars has dwindled in the UK and forces are slowly being pulled out. You'd think if anything like this was gonna happen it would have done years ago.

But then not much makes sense in the world these days.

This is beautiful.

A mother-of-two described tonight how she put her own life on the line by trying to persuade the soldier’s murderers to hand over their weapons.

Cub scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett selflessly engaged the terrorists in conversation and kept her nerve as one of them told her: “We want to start a war in London tonight.”

Mrs Loyau-Kennett, 48, from Cornwall, was one of the first people on the scene after the two Islamic extremists butchered a soldier in Woolwich, south east London.

She was photographed by onlookers confronting one of the attackers who was holding a bloodied knife.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10074881/Mum-talked-down-Woolwich-terrorists-who-told-her-We-want-to-start-a-war-in-London-tonight.html

Woman is brave. Really, in the worst times people can astonish you. Well worth reading the whole of that article.

Wow

Great - the racist fucktards have now turned up:

English Defence League leader "Tommy Robinson" (pictured below) addressed around 60 to 100 protesters who went to Woolwich after the apparent killing of a British soldier by two men on Wednesday.

Running battles erupted in the streets with youths and EDL activists in balaclavas throwing rocks at riot police. Some wore paramilitary dress.

Fifteen police vans are at the scene and witnesses said police now "have things under control".

http://www.channel4.com/news/woolwich-terror-attack-edl-clash-police

Fucking EDL, they are doing exactly what the two attackers wanted to happen, to cause disruption and friction.

Fucking idiots!

This only drives up support for the EDL, and they are some of the worst.

@fourwude:Not directly related but about a month back there was an attempted attack on an area where one of the EDL's rallys was taking place. Except the guys turned up when it had already finished, got pulled over for a traffic violation, and then had their makeshift bombs and guns found. It's like a comedy sketch.

When is 2013 going to be over? This year has sucked so far.

See it's shit like this which makes me question whether these guys are even "real" terrorists, or just idiotic, and I don't mean to be offensive here, mentally retarded patsies. They tend to be chosen from the lower end of the IQ spectrum for a reason. Becauase they're not too smart to figure what's going on.

Real terrorism, historically speaking from UK experiences, are mostly simple, low level operations. A roadside bomb, a shootout, a targeted shooting of an officer or soldier. Simple equipment used, and simple plans. The moment someone tells me how half the worlds security agencies and armies have been outwitted, with a plot straight out of '24', I stop reading.

There is an interesting article on the telegraph titled The random attack: MI5s greatest fear. Going back to @fourwude the action which is most likely to slip through the net is the one which could be acted upon by the flip of a switch.

Edit: I should state there is a graphic picture within that article (blood)

People like to call dudes like this "extremists" and they're not wrong, but honestly? They're just idiots. They are, intellectually, at the bottom rung of human society. Its the islamist version of idiocracy.

It's really unsettling to see a guy with blood on his hands holding two knives covered in blood rationalizing why he helped kill the man a few feet away in the middle of the street with a bunch of people standing around looking and some just walking by the killer carrying about their business.

Indeed. I mean personally I think those people have every right to be angry and thirsty for blood, they have been continuously raped, abused and manipulated by the west for over 100 years, let alone having their riches robbed from under their feet. But butchering a dude in the street and standing around with the knife drenched in blood talking to people is just fucked up.

It's like, they've been brutalized and they naturally feel oppressed and wanna brutalize back and that makes sense because it's survival instinct and human nature, but at the same time I don't want them to kill people because people shouldn't die. But they're simultaneously being killed, or helped to be killed, by the governments and armies of these innocents they're killing, so who is there to kill for payback?

I cannot compute this conundrum.