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Irish-Moroccan Involved in London Attack | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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A woman attaches a sign near London Bridge, after attackers rammed a hired van into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbed others nearby killing and injuring people. (Reuters)


British police revealed on Monday the identities of two of the three attackers behind the Saturday’s London assault. One of them has been identified as Irish-Moroccan Rachid Redouane, announced national counter-terrorism police chief Mark Rowley.

The other slain assailant was British citizen born in Pakistan, Khuram Butt, 27, who had been known to security services.

All three attackers were shot dead by police after their rampage left seven people dead.
The police made at least a dozen arrests in east London on Sunday and carried out further raids on Monday.

Police said they were trying to identify the third attacker.

“However, there was no intelligence to suggest that this attack was being planned, and the investigation had been prioritized accordingly,” police said.

Redouane, 30, went by the alias Rachid Elkhdar and claimed to be Moroccan or Libyan, police said. He and Butt lived in the same area of east London.

One of Butt’s neighbors, Ikenna Chigbo, told Reuters he had chatted with Butt – also known as “Abz” – just hours before the attack on Saturday and said he appeared “almost euphoric”.

“He was very sociable, seemed like an ordinary family man. He would always bring his kid out into the lobby”.

Another neighbor, Michael Mimbo, told Reuters that Butt supported the north London football team Arsenal. One of the dead attackers has been pictured wearing an Arsenal shirt.

The rampage followed a suicide bomb attack which killed 22 adults and children at a concert in Manchester two weeks ago, and an attack in March when five people died after a van was driven into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge.

All 10 people still being held as part of the investigation were released without charge on Monday.

Police chief Cressida Dick said investigators had seized “a huge amount of forensic material” from the attackers’ van.

“A very high priority for us is to try to understand whether they were working with anybody else,” she told BBC television.

She and Mayor Sadiq Khan visited London Bridge as commuters returned to work after some security cordons were removed, and hundreds of mourners turned out later for a vigil on nearby Tower Bridge.

“To the sick and evil extremists who commit these hideous crimes, we will defeat you. You will not win,” Khan said to applause.

The Amaq news agency, which is affiliated with the ISIS group, said the attacks were carried out by “a detachment of fighters from ISIS”.

A Canadian and a Frenchman were among the dead and citizens of several nations were among the 48 injured, including Australia, Bulgaria, France, Greece and New Zealand.

Eighteen are still in critical condition, according to health authorities.

Saturday’s rampage was the latest in a string of attacks to hit Europe, including in Paris, Berlin and Saint Petersburg.