By Li Hongmei
British Prime Minister David Cameron is to chair an emergency response committee meeting, after a knife attack in southeast London left a British soldier dead.
Speaking in Paris on the evening of 22 May the Prime Minister David Cameron said: "I've been briefed by the Home Secretary about this absolutely sickening attack in Woolwich in London. It is the most appalling crime. We are urgently seeking, and the police are urgently seeking, the full facts about this case. But there are strong indications that it is a terrorist incident. Two people at the scene of the murder were wounded by the police, and they are being treated as suspects".
David Cameron asked the Home Secretary Theresa May to hold a meeting of the government's emergency co-ordination group, COBR (Cabinet Office Briefing Room). "I'll be returning to London later tonight so that I can chair a COBR meeting again in the morning to make sure that we have all of the facts of this case," Cameron said.
It would be the second meeting of the Cobra committee, named after the Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, in two days, after a session Wednesday under Home Secretary Theresa May.
Two suspects have been arrested, and the investigation was being led by counter-terrorism officers, the Metropolitan police said.
In a video broadcast by ITV news, one of the suspects, with bloodied hands and carrying a large knife and cleaver, said: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you."
Buckingham Palace says the Queen is concerned at the news of the attack and is being kept informed.
French President Francois Hollande speaking at the Elysee Palace in Paris, condemned the assassination of a British soldier, expressing his solidarity with the UK.
On Twitter, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson described the attack as a "sickening deluded and unforgivable act of violence".
A representative from the Muslim Council of Britain has condemned a machete attack in Woolwich. Ibrahim Mogra said that the vast majority of Muslims would say that the attacks had "nothing to do with Islam" and were the action of a minority.
Two suspects have been taken into custody after the attack, which the British government said appeared to be an act of terrorism. Police have not identified the suspects.
The sources, speaking independently, said a Nigerian link was being investigated but gave no further details about the nature of the link. Police spokesmen declined to comment.
British politician George Galloway compares London machete attack to U.K. policy in Syria.
"This sickening atrocity in London is exactly what we are paying the same kind of people to do in Syria".
Galloway, who opposes his country's decision to support some rebel groups in Syria, seems to be arguing that those rebels are akin to the machete attackers.
On his Twitter, Galloway has dug in, saying that both Syrian rebels and the Woolwich attackers are "Al Qaeda followers. Sickening murderers. The kind we arm and pay for in Syria."
