A despicable terror attack in London

A despicable terror attack in London

By E. Stanley Ukeni

The world has reacted with a collective disgust as a lone terrorist kills three people and injured forty others on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. Fortunately, the depraved assailant was shot dead before he could inflict further fatalities—but not before he stabbed a police officer in the vicinity of the British House of Parliament.

Reports from Scotland Yard indicated that, the suspected terrorist, using a gray Hyundai SUV as a weapon of mass carnage, plowed through unsuspecting pedestrians, as he sped his car along the sidewalk of Westminster Bridge before ramming the vehicle into a fence near Parliament. Wielding a knife, the assailant then hurried out of the car and raced towards Parliament building.

He stabbed dead an unarmed on-duty police officer, PC Keith Palmer, who tried to intercept him before he was shot and killed. It’s a good thing he was stopped, because God know what sort of horror he’d inflicted if he had successfully made it into the building that housed United Kingdom’s lawmakers.

This despicable act of cruelty has been reported as the worst terror attack in London since July 7, 2005, when the capital city was hit with a series of suicide bomb attacks on public transport during rush hour. British law enforcement authorities believe the British-born assailant was inspired by international and radical Islamist-related terrorism.

Although London police have released the name of the assailant who killed three innocent people and injured forty other, I refuse to publish his name on my blog, as a way of honoring his innocent victims. I do not believe in recognizing vicious killers. Evil must never be rewarded with any sort of recognition. This depraved killer is a no-body and he must stay a nonentity in death.

Scotland Yard’s Mark Rowley, at a Thursday morning press conference, said that twenty-nine individuals—seven of whom were in critical condition, are being treated in various U.K. hospitals.

Addressing MPs at the House of Commons today, March 23, 2017, as the law makers gathers at for their usual Parliamentary session inside the Palace of Westminster, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, delivered a speech detailing the atrocity committed by the knife-wielding terrorist.

Then, paying tribute to Officer PC Keith Palmer, who died after being stabbed by the assailant, the Prime Minister said, “He was every inch a hero and his actions will never be forgotten.”

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May, described the attack as “Sick and depraved.” I think we all agree with her on that.

In her address, the Prime Minister, gave details of the nationalities of the victims of the terror attack as twelve Britons, one American, three French children, two Romanians, four South Koreans, one German, one Pole, one Irish, one Chinese, one Italian and two Greeks.

The Associated Press has reported that an official from the Mormon Church has identified the slain American as Kurt W. Cochran and his wife Melissa—who were on their 25^th wedding anniversary trip to London. She was seriously wounded in the attack.

Late Thursday, March 23, 2017, the Islamic State terrorist group declared, through its Aamag News Agency, that the attacker was a soldier of the Islamic State who ‘carried out the terror attack in response to its call for the targeting of civilians and security forces in countries allied to the United States’ led military coalition of countries fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.

This willful and unprovoked act of savagery is yet another wake up call to the world that carnage of terror is a real and festering threat to the peace of our world. This scourge must be dealt with resolutely and collectively.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased victims of this awful and cowardly act of terror.   

Authored by E. Stanley Ukeni, ©2017. All Rights Reserved. This material and other articles or stories posted on this blog site may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed, in whole or in part, without prior expressed written permission from the author, E. Stanley Ukeni.

You are invited to follow E. Stanley Ukeni on twitter at; @EzStan . I invite you to equally follow me on google+

Photo Credit: PA