From our correspondent in London
It is as if, along with everyday life, the coronavirus had frozen threats. And the British had almost forgotten the terrorist shadow. Islamist terror, however, has just been tragically remembered in the kingdom, with the knife attack that left three dead Saturday night in a park in Reading, west of London.
After being reluctant to label it as such, police said on Sunday they treated the attack as a " terrorist " act . The 25-year-old suspect stabbed several people, killing three and seriously injuring three others, before being arrested. According to the press, it is a Libyan asylum seeker, by the name of Khairi Saadallah, and living in this city of 200,000 inhabitants located some sixty kilometers from the capital. After saying he was " scandalized and disgusted ", Boris Johnson held a crisis meeting with security officials in the middle of the day.
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By this early sunny evening, the park of Forbury Gardens had many walkers or groups of friends having a drink on the lawns, in these times of confinement when the pubs are closed. Shouting unintelligible words, the attacker broke into a circle of ten people and began to hit them, one after the other with a long-bladed knife, aiming at the neck and torso. Three of them were seriously stabbed. Then, the terrorist turned to other targets, before fleeing the park. It was an unarmed policeman who arrested him, making a " rugby tackle ", say newspapers. The police estimated Sunday that the man acted alone, without still clear on the " motivations " of the killer.
The nature of the attack sadly reminded the British of other attacks in recent months. In February a man injured three people, including one seriously, on a shopping street in south London before being shot by the police. The assailant had already been imprisoned for promoting Islamist violence and the Islamic State group had claimed responsibility for the attack via its propaganda body Amaq. Last November, another attack left two people dead when a man - also in prison on terrorist charges - attacked passers-by on the London Bridge, before being killed by police. However, the level of terrorist alert should remain the same. In November, it had been revised downwards, from " severe " to " important ", the third degree on a scale which includes five.
An individual already spotted
This new attack should relaunch the debate on the surveillance of individuals close to the Islamist movement. Indeed, it seems that once again the terrorist had already been spotted by the security services. Khairi Saadallah would thus have entered the MI5 radar - the internal intelligence services - in 2019. British agents were then warned that he wanted to go abroad for jihadist attacks. The investigation would then have shown no imminent threat emanating from the young Libyan and the file had been closed. Boris Johnson has promised to "learn lessons" from the attack and assured that his government "would not hesitate to take action" that may be necessary.
The Saturday night drama occurred near the location of a demonstration by the anti-racist Black Lives Matter movement that day. Organizers and the police alike believed that there was no connection between the two events. Internet users, however, made one on social networks, wondering if we would one day put a knee on the ground in tribute to the victims of Islamist terrorism.
