Woman killed, five hurt in London knife attack

London, August 4

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An American woman in her 60s was today stabbed to death and five others were injured when a suspected mentally ill teenager went on a rampage with a knife in central London.

A 19-year-old Norwegian national of the Somali origin was arrested using a Taser gun on suspicion of carrying out the “random” mass knife attack at Russell Square near the British Museum in central London at 10.39 pm (local time yesterday), Scotland Yard said.

The police said there was “no evidence of radicalisation” in the assault. The victims include Australian, American, Israeli and British citizens. Calling for “calm and vigilance”, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said, “People’s safety is my number one priority.”

The attack came on a day Scotland Yard announced that 600 additional armed officers would be deployed around London’s major sites, including British Museum, as part of anti-terror plans in the wake of the ISIS attacks in Europe, and days after Metropolitan Police chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said a terror attack in the UK was a case of “when, not if.”

However, Metropolitan police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said “at this point we believe this is a spontaneous attack and the victims were selected at random”. — PTI