London: British police on Friday shot dead a man who had strapped a fake bomb to his body and stabbed a number of people in what they said was a terrorism incident in the London Bridge area of the capital.
Police said they had been alerted at just before 2 p.m. to a stabbing at a premises near London Bridge, the scene of a deadly attack by Islamist militants two years ago.
“A male suspect was shot by specialist armed officers from the City of London police and I can confirm that this suspect died at the scene,” the United Kingdom’s top counter-terrorism officer, Neil Basu, said.
“A number of other people received injuries during this incident,” Basu said. “We believe a device that was strapped to the body of the suspect was a hoax explosive device.”
A video posted on Twitter showed a group of about half a dozen men wrestling with someone on the ground on the sidewalk of the bridge. One of them backs away from the scene carrying a knife.
As he looks towards the melee, an armed police officer drags another person away from the man on the floor. Soon after, what sound like two gunshots ring out, and the man on the ground stops moving.
Reuters could not immediately verify the footage.
The ambulance service declared a “major incident” in the area and London Bridge station, a busy commuter hub, was closed.
People in buildings around the scene were evacuated to the north side of the River Thames by security services.
