3rd attacker named in London rampage that killed 7
Moroccan-Italian Youssef Zaghba was 1 of 3 men killed by police after London Bridge, market attacks
The third militant involved in Saturday's attacks in London that left seven people dead and dozens wounded is believed to be Moroccan-Italian Youssef Zaghba, British police said Tuesday.
British police earlier identified the other two attackers as Khuram Shazad Butt, and Rachid Redouane. All three, who wore fake suicide vests, were shot and killed by police after they moved in to stop the attacks, which began with a van running over people on London Bridge before three men jumped out armed with knives.
Police said Zaghba was not on police or intelligence radar. They said Tuesday he is from east London and his family has been notified.
British authorities are tracking close to 3,000 people for links to extremism.
An official at the Bologna chief prosecutor's office said Zaghba, an Italian citizen, was stopped at the city's airport after arriving on a flight from London 2016.
The Italian Interior Ministry official told The Associated Press that British and Moroccan intelligence and law-enforcement authorities were informed that Zaghba had been flagged as someone "at risk" — but no other details were released.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Zaghba was stopped at the city's airport after arriving on a flight from London in 2016. Zaghba's cellphone and passport were confiscated when he was stopped at the airport, but he successfully retrieved them after a court determined there wasn't enough evidence to accuse him of any terrorism-related crime.
A British government official confirmed the details, first reported by Italian media.
Zaghba was reportedly working in a London restaurant and had not been seen in Italy since 2016.
British police also announced a new arrest in their investigation into the hit-and-run attack on London Bridge and the stabbings in nearby Borough Market — a 27-year-old man in Barking, East London.
A new search was conducted Tuesday in the same neighbourhood where two of the London Bridge attackers lived, hours after police said they had freed everyone detained in the wake of the attack.
The weekend attack, the third in Britain in three months, has raised questions over the government's ability to protect Britain following cuts to police numbers in recent years. The issue has become a key one in the run-up to Thursday's general election.
Prime Minister Theresa May, who called the snap election in hopes of strengthening her mandate for discussions over Britain's exit from the European Union, has come under fire for the cuts to police numbers over recent years. A string of opinion polls over the past couple of weeks point to a narrowing in the gap between her Conservative Party and the main opposition Labour Party.
London police said all 12 people held since the attack late Saturday from the Barking neighbourhood in the east of the city have been freed. As part of the search in Ilford, just north of Barking, authorities were trying to determine whether the group had accomplices.
The Jihadis Next Door
One of the attackers, Butt, had appeared in a documentary The Jihadis Next Door and was known to investigators, but police said he was not believed to be plotting an attack. The second, Redouane, had not aroused any suspicions. The three, who were wearing fake suicide vests, were shot dead during the attack.
Neighbours described Butt as an avid weightlifter. Transport for London confirmed he worked for London Underground in customer services before leaving last October.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said questions would need to be asked about what the police knew about Butt.
Redouane, 30, was found with an Irish identification card, Irish media reported Tuesday. Prime Minister Enda Kenny confirmed that one of the attackers lived in Ireland for a time.
Redouane was able to remain in Britain with a non-European Economic Area family card he received after getting married in Ireland in 2012, Irish broadcaster RTE reported.
Ireland has a common travel area with Britain that allows the freedom of movement of people within the two islands as well as the rights to reside, work and access public services.
Much of the area around London Bridge remained cordoned off as commuters struggled to work in the driving rain.
The area around Borough Market is not expected to reopen Tuesday.
The nearby London Bridge station was operational though one of the exits that leads to the cordoned off area on Borough High Street remained closed.
A minute's silence
People across Britain paused for a minute's silence Tuesday at 11 a.m. local time in memory of the seven people who died and 48 injured during the attack late Saturday.
Commuters paused in train stations, hospital staff gathered in hospital foyers and workers stopped work in government offices. Ambulance workers, many of whom treated the wounded in Saturday's attack, gathered outside their headquarters alongside Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Canadian Christine Archibald of Castlegar, B.C., was the first person named as having been killed in the attack, on London Bridge.
An Australian nurse, Kirsty Boden, 28, has also been identified as among the seven killed.
The Metropolitan Police issued a statement Tuesday on behalf of her family saying, "As she ran towards danger, in an effort to help people on the bridge, Kirsty sadly lost her life." Police did not elaborate on how she was killed.
James McMullan, from Hackney, East London, is also believed to have been killed, according to his sister Melissa, who said police had informed her family that his bank card had been found on one of the bodies.
He was last seen at the Barrowboy and Banker pub on Borough High Street at about 10 p.m. Saturday.
Questions remain over whether investigators had the resources to look into complaints such as those levelled by Butt's neighbours about his attempts to radicalize children and whether crucial opportunities were missed that could have saved lives.
Saturday's attack was the third in as many months involving suspects who had been on the radar of British authorities. All three have been claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
It had been set at "critical" in the days after the Manchester concert bombing on May 22 that killed 22 people — reflecting a judgment that an attack might be imminent because accomplices with similar bombs might be on the loose.
It was lowered once intelligence agencies were comfortable this wasn't the case. Authorities have said the London attack was apparently unconnected to the Manchester bombing.
The brother of the suicide bomber in the attack after the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester on May 22 was released without charges on Tuesday.
Ismail Abedi was arrested in the Manchester neighbourhood of Chorlton a day after the attack.
