Seven people have died after a terrorist attack at London Bridge and Borough Market. Here is what we know so far…

• Seven people were killed and dozens injured during attacks in two closely connected areas of London on Saturday night. The police are treating the attacks as terrorist incidents.
• Police were called after a white rental van was driven into pedestrians on London Bridge at about 9.58pm on Saturday night. The van continued on to nearby Borough Market where three attackers emerged and carried out multiple stabbings in pubs and restaurants.
• Armed police arrived and shot the attackers dead within eight minutes of being alerted. The attackers were armed with knives and wore what turned out to be fake suicide vests.
• On Sunday night, Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. “A detachment of Islamic State fighters executed yesterday’s London attack,” said a statement posted on the group’s Amaq media agency website.
• The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said a Canadian national was among those killed in the attack. The victim was later named as Christine Archibald who had moved to Europe to be with her fiance. “She had room in her heart for everyone and believed strongly that every person was to be valued and respected,” her family said in a statement.
• A French man is among those killed in the attack, the foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, confirmed. Seven people from France were injured, four of them critically. One person is still missing.
• There were multiple casualties in addition to the deaths. London Ambulance Service said 48 people were taken to five hospitals in the capital and a number of others were treated at the scene for minor injuries. The NHS said on Monday that 18 were in a critical condition.
• Eight armed police officers fired an estimated 50 rounds during the incident – an unprecedented number for the UK. One member of the public was caught in the gunfire when a bullet struck him in the head. A senior doctor at the Royal London hospital in east London said the man was expected to make a full recovery.

• A British Transport Police officer armed only with his baton was stabbed in the face as he tackled the assailants. He suffered serious injuries, but is in a stable condition in hospital. An off-duty Metropolitan police officer was among others injured in the attack. Two more on-duty officers were described as “walking wounded”.
• At least four Australian citizens were injured, according to the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Among them, Candice Hedge from Brisbane was stabbed in the neck and is recovering after being treated in St Thomas’ hospital. A man from New Zealand also suffered serious wounds in the attack. At least four French citizens were harmed, one seriously. Geoff Ho, a journalist with the Sunday Express, was left in intensive care after being stabbed in the throat when he tried to help a wounded bouncer.
• Police raided two more properties in Newham and Barking in east London early on Monday morning. Counter-terrorist officers detained “a number of people”, the Metropolitan police said.
• The Met arrested 12 people on Sunday after an operation in Barking in east London. One person, a 55-year-old man, has since been released. On Sunday morning, police raided a block of flats in the area where at least one of the suspects is thought to have lived. Another raid, at a flat in nearby East Ham, followed in the afternoon.

• Speaking outside 10 Downing Street after she had chaired a meeting of Cobra, the government’s emergency committee, Theresa May condemned Islamist extremism and called the ideology a “perversion of Islam”. She said there was “a new trend in the threat we face,” with terrorism breeding terrorism. “It is time to say enough is enough,” she added.
• The prime minister said there must be changes on four fronts: first, people who are drawn to Islamist extremism must be persuaded that western values are superior. Second, there must be a clampdown on the “safe spaces” on the internet where terrorism breeds. Third, she called for action at home where extremism may be tolerated. “There is – to be frank – far too much tolerance of extremism in our country,” she said. Finally, she proposed a review of counter-terrorism strategy and laws, and suggested longer sentences for some offences. She confirmed that the general election would go ahead on Thursday as planned.
• After a brief suspension in election campaigning in the wake of the attack a bitter row erupted over cuts to police funding, with Jeremy Corbyn backing calls for May to resign over her record on the issue while she was home secretary. The prime minister dodged accusations that police numbers had fallen by tens of thousands since 2010 and that the number of armed officers had also fallen.
• On a visit to London Bridge on Monday, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said he was “furious that these three men are seeking to justify their actions by using the faith that I belong to. The ideology they follow is perverse, it is poisonous, and it has no place in Islam.”
• Jeremy Corbyn delivered a speech on the attack in Carlisle on Sunday evening. He said that, if he won the election, he would commission a report on Friday on the changing nature of the terrorist threat. He also used the speech to criticise May for ignoring warnings about the impact of police cuts, as well as to criticise the US president, Donald Trump, for his comments about the London Bridge attack.

• The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre at MI5 headquarters has recommended not to raise the official threat level from severe to critical, suggesting that it believes no more terrorists are at large.
• The UK will observe a minute’s silence on Tuesday 6 June at 11am in remembrance of those who have lost their lives and all others affected by the attacks. Flags will remain at half-mast on Whitehall government buildings until Tuesday evening.
• The Home Office has set up a website with information about the support available for people affected by the attacks.
• A statement from the office of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, confirmed that French citizens were among the injured. He condemned “an abominable and cowardly attack against our free society”.

Source : The Guardian, Monday 5th June.