Drummer Lee Rigby, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, has been identified as the victim in the horrific Woolwich attack.
The Islamic fanatics accused of butchering a British soldier on a London street and then bragging about it to stunned witness were no strangers to law enforcement.
Michael Adebolajo, last seen on video waving blood-soaked meat cleaver and ranting about avenging Muslims in Afghanistan and elsewhere, had been on their radar for several years, the British media reported Thursday.
So was the other maniac, a 22-year-old whose name Scotland Yard has not yet been released.
The revelations about the pair came as the British Army identified the slain soldier as 25-year-old Lee Rigby, a seven-year vet who had served in Afghanistan, and as police arrested two additional suspects, a man and woman, both 29, in connection with the deadly attacks.
Investigators did not identify them either, but they were arrested “on suspicion of conspiracy to
murder” after their South London apartments were searched.
“This is a large, complex and fast-moving investigation which continues to develop,”
Scotland Yard said in a statement.
President Obama weighed in with a condemnation of the “appalling attack.”
“There can be absolutely no justification for such acts, and our thoughts and prayers are
with the family of the victim,” he said.
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Michael Adebolajo fell under the sway of Anjem Choudary, a hate-preach cleric. |
In New York, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly dispatched extra police officer to the British
Consulate on Third Ave. “out of an abundance of caution” and touched base with NYPD
officers based in London.
“We always have our ear to the ground,” Kelly said. “We're getting information and want to
see, of course, if there is any connectivity to New York.”
So far, the barbarity that claimed Rigby’s life appeared to be British-based.
Adebolajo, a once-devout Christian who converted to Islam a decade ago, was a follower of hate-
preaching cleric named Anjem Choudary, who has been accused of inspiring other outbreaks of terror
in Britain.
While British counter-terrorism haven’t formally named Adebolajo as a murder suspect, Choudary
eagerly identified the 28-year-old as a member of his fanatical flock.
“He converted around 2003 to Islam, before I met him and I knew him as his convert name Mujaheed
when he used to attend our demonstrations and lectures,” Choudary said.
While Adebolajo was caught on video after the slaughter of Rigby on Wednesday railing about taking
“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” Choudary called the alleged butcher “quiet” and a
“pleasant lad.”
Adebolajo’s alleged accomplice, last seen wearing a tan coat and declaring, “We want to start a war
in London tonight!” has not yet been identified.
Both men were shot by police responding to the blood-soaked scene in South London and were
recuperating under heavy watch in two different London hospitals.
A self-proclaimed jihadi, Adebolajo reportedly was a student at London's University of Greenwich and
had lived in the neighborhood where the attack happened around 2004 and 2005.
Adebolajo was identified as the maniac in a black watch cap who seen on a cell phone video clutching
a bloodied knife and ranting just moments after the soldier was viciously slaughtered and beheaded
“like a piece of meat,” witnesses said.
His family home was raided by police as were two London apartments where he had once lived.
“This is in connection with the ongoing investigation into the murder of a man in
Woolwich,” The Metropolitan Police said, referring to the London neighborhood where Rigby was killed.
Adebolajo’s family lives in Lincolnshire, about 150 miles north of the murder scene.
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| A police officer carries an evidence bag containing a knife near the scene of the killing of a British soldier in Woolwich, southeast London, on Wednesday |
who had lived in Britain for a decade. The suspect also reportedly has a brother and a sister.
“They were very quiet people and kept ... to themselves,” said neighbor Marjorie Arnold. “There
always used to be three cars parked on their drive, but yesterday I noticed there was only
one.
“There were lots of cars parked around here last night,” she added. “I thought there must
have been a party. It is all quite disturbing.”
Neither Adebolajo nor the other man have been linked to Islamic terrorist groups in Nigeria like Boko
Haram, which have been blamed for numerous blood attacks in the African country.
British Prime Minister David Cameron denounced the attack on Rigby as “betrayal of Islam” as heavily
armed police fanned out across London to patrol neighborhoods with large Muslim populations and
mosques.
“The fault lies solely and purely with the sickening individuals who carried out this appalling
attack,” Cameron said.
Cameron also heaped praise on Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, a 48-year-old Cub Scout leader and
mom who was so outraged by the daytime savagery that she confronted one of the
suspects — even though he was brandishing a long butcher knife.
“When told by an attacker that he wanted to start a war in London she replied, ‘You’re
going to lose. It is only you versus many.’ She spoke for us all,” Cameron said.
Cameron also warned against “knee-jerk responses” to the attack, following reports of unrest in
London stoked overnight by the English Defence League.
The EDL is a collection of right wing hooligans whose stated aims are stopping the spread of Islam
and kicking immigrants out of the country. They are also anti-Jewish.
In recent years, London has also seen a rise of so-called Muslim Patrols, which are Islamic vigilantes
who have been accused of hassling women who don’t dress modestly and beating up gays who
wander into “Muslim Areas.”
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Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, the woman who talked to the two men accused of murdering a soldier in London, told the British program 'Daybreak' that she was acting on instinct. |
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