Advertisement

London Bridge terror attack: Eyewitness describes moment three men shouted 'This is for Allah' before frenzied knife attack

People flee the scene on London Bridge
People flee the scene on London Bridge

Eyewitnesses have described the moment three terrorists launched a frenzied terror attack at London Bridge and Borough Market.

Six people have been killed and three male suspects – who were wearing hoax explosive vests – were shot dead by police in the incident.

Twenty casualties have been taken to hospital.

Officers responded to reports of a vehicle ploughing into pedestrians around London Bridge and stabbings at Borough Market shortly after 10pm.

Witnesses said they saw three men armed with knives start randomly attacking passers-by.

Alex Shellum was in The Mudlark pub, close to London Bridge, at around 10pm when a woman in her early 20s “staggered into the pub”.

“She was bleeding heavily from the neck and from her mouth,” he told BBC News.

“It appeared to myself and to my friends that her throat had been cut. People went to her aid.”

Armed officers shot and killed the three suspects
Armed officers shot and killed the three suspects

One witness, known as Gerard, described the moment he saw a series of stabbings by three men near Borough Market.

“They were stabbing everyone. They were running up and going ‘This is for Allah’,” he told BBC News.

“They ran up and stabbed this girl – I don’t know how many times – 10 times, maybe 15 times.

“She was going, ‘Help me, help me’ and I couldn’t do nothing. I threw something – there was a bike on the floor. I threw something at them like a bike or a chair.”

It is thought three men got out of the van after the attack on London Bridge and entered Borough Market.

Husband and wife Ben and Natalie told BBC Radio 5 Live they were outside Borough Market, coming up the entrance of the underground when they saw the incident.

Ben said: “We saw people running away and then I saw a man in red with a large blade, at a guess 10 inches long, stabbing a man, about three times.

Police urge bystanders to clear the area on London's South Bank (PA)
Police urge bystanders to clear the area on London’s South Bank (PA)

“It looked like the man had been trying to intervene, but there wasn’t much he could do. He was being stabbed quite coldly and he slumped to the ground.”

Ben said the man walked away boldly with another person, and went towards the Southwark Tavern. He said they saw a metal chair being thrown towards the man.

“Then we heard three gunshots, definitely gunshots, and we ran.”

Jamie, a witness who was in a restaurant on Rochester Walk near London Bridge, told the Press Association: “We were in the Black and Blue restaurant, we heard a fight and everyone got up and everyone rushed out of the restaurant and we heard a massive, massive bang.

Some people reported hearing gunshots (AP)
Some people reported hearing gunshots (AP)

“Then we hid under the table and people came into the restaurant and knocked a bunch of stuff over, like the till.

“And then we ran into the restaurant into the kitchen, where there was a bunch of other people and a guy had been stabbed and he was cut and he was bleeding quite a lot.”

He added that they waited in the kitchen for “quite a while” before they were evacuated.

Foto: AP
Foto: AP

A female companion said: “We were in the restaurant and we just saw three guys come into the restaurant, stabbed someone in the face and someone in the stomach.

“One of them had a big knife, then he came in and walked around the restaurant, I guess they just kind of stabbed anyone that they saw and knocked things on the ground and then we just hid.”

Olivia Doyle, 23, told the Guardian: “We arrived to see paramedics running to injured people. There were two people lying on the north end, on the east side of the bridge, just off the pavement. There were bits of what looked like car wreckage. We thought it was bits of bike or something. I saw four or five people lying on the ground, but everyone I saw was alive.

“It seemed like some kind of vehicle had knocked people down. They were two or three minutes walk apart, it obviously wasn’t an accident.

“I saw armed police officers shouting at people to stay in their cars, and pedestrians running past us off the bridge.

“We got out of our car and started running, then realised that we’d be better off in the car and we could be blocking the road, and the road was clear behind us except for a taxi that had been abandoned.”

Another witness in the London Bridge area, Thomas Daly, was watching the Champions League final in The Sheaf when he saw security people running outside towards the entrance.

He tried to leave when the match finished but found the doors were closed and they were unable to leave.

The 36-year-old, from Liverpool, said: “People were saying there had been a stabbing at Borough Market and they locked us in.

“We sat down again and some minutes later people started coming into the bar and people were getting a bit hysterical.

“A lot of people were streaming through the rear exit and we went outside and heard gunshots.

“I heard gunshots, at least two gunshots, and at that point the people who were trying to get out the back entrance came back inside.

“We went outside to the back, there was the gunfire and then we decided to come back in again.”

Armed police then came into the bar and evacuated people, he added.

Liam, who was in a flat above Southwark Tavern next to London Bridge, told BBC Radio 5 Live: “We heard people screaming and we looked out and I saw people running down into the underground, and simply running in any direction they could.

“The restaurant opposite had been completely smashed up, and a crowd of people were pointing into the market saying ‘he’s down there’.

“They got the attention of what looked like an armed police car, and pointed down Borough Market. The car screeched in that direction and we heard what sounded like five or six very loud gun shots.”