treated. this is bbc news coverage of the latest terror attack here in the united kingdom at london bridge and borough market. it happened just after ten o'clock london time, around seven hours ago. we now know that six people have been killed and three suspected assailants have been shot dead. this is special coverage on bbc news channel and bbc world as well as bbc one. let's bring you up—to—date with the very latest as we have it. just after ten o'clock local time, a white van swerved off the road and ploughed into pedestrians on london bridge. then a number of stabbings were carried out at nearby borough market.

assistant commissioner mark rowley from the metropolitan police has been briefing journalists on the latest picture. this is what he told us latest picture. this is what he told usa latest picture. this is what he told us a few minutes ago. the metropolitan police has been responding to incidents in london bridge and borough market areas of london. we're treating this as a terrorist incident and a full investigation is under way led by london's counterterrorism command. you will understand our knowledge of the incident is still growing but at the moment what we understand is as follows. at 10:08pm last night we began to receive reports a vehicle had struck pedestrians on london bridge. the vehicle continued to drive them from london bridge to borough market. the suspects left the vehicle, attempting to stab number of people, including an on—duty

british transport police officer who was responding to the incident and he received serious injuries, fortunately not life—threatening. his family has been informed. armed response officers then responded very quickly and bravely and confronted the three male suspects, who were shot and killed in borough market. the suspects had been confronted and shot by police within eight minutes of the first call. the suspects were wearing what looked like an explosive vests, but these were later established to be hoaxes. the ongoing operation is led by the met, working closely with british transport police, city of london police and london's ambulance and transport services. at this stage we believe sadly six people have died in addition to the three attackers shot by police, and there are at least 20 casualties taken to six hospitals across london, but numbers are still rising. i'd like to repeat our request for londoners to avoid the areas

of london bridge and borough market to enable the emergency services to continue this operation. this investigation, as i said, is led by the counterterrorism command and we'd ask for help from the public in the for running in the following way, anyone who's got any images or film from the incident tonight, perhaps people in the area, can help by uploading it to www.ukpoliceimageappeal.co.uk and you can get that on various newsfeeds. of course our thoughts are with those who are involved and those concerned about loved ones in the area, they should contract our casualty bureau open on 0800 0961233. if you're worried about someone in the area, 0800 0961233. looking forward we are reviewing our plans for policing stance across london and overforthcoming days people can expect to see more police resources across the capital.

finally i would ask the public to be vigilant and contact the police if they've got any concerns. assistant commissioner, can you tell us is this incident completely over now? our current belief is that there were three attackers, but this is early on, so we've still got some enquiries to work through to be completely confident about that. there were three attackers in the vehicle, so the attackers in the vehicle have all been killed? this is a protracted incident that starts on the bridge and finishes in borough market and we believe three people were involved but we've got more enquiries to do to be 100% confident in that. can you tell us more about the attacks and where people were being killed? you're asking for a lot of detail there, we're still getting to the bottom of what's gone on, the number of casualties and it is still a complex scene, as you've understood from what i've said, we are still dealing with the fact that at one stage there was believed to be explosives but that's now been ruled out. can you tell us a bit more about the people involved in the operation to bring

down these terrorists? the public will be aware we have strengthened our armed policing presence across london in recent years, we got more armed response vehicles to hand and it's those armed response vehicles out driving around london day in day out to protect the public, they responded quickly and bravely confronted these three individuals, shot them and they are dead. that was the assistant commissioner speaking earlier on stock let me bring you a statement from the home secretary, amber rudd who has said that her thoughts are with the victims and all those affected. i am extremely proud, says the home secretary, and thankful to police and emergency services who responded so and emergency services who responded so swiftly. and who will work tirelessly as the investigation into this appalling act continues. that

is from amber rudd, the home secretary. we also have a casualty number to bring you. a casualty bureau number. if you are worried about relatives or friends or loved ones who may have been caught up in the attack here at london bridge and borough market last night it is 0800 0961 233. that is borough market last night it is 0800 0961233. that is a borough market last night it is 0800 0961 233. that is a casualty bureau number that the police have issued. let's get a report on all the details and development so far over the last few hours from our correspondent. just after 10pm on the busy streets of london, police are responding to reports of an ongoing serious incident. what the hell is happening? a white van has driven into pedestrians on london bridge.

when it stopped its rear doors were flung open and several men ran out. they went into the busy pubs and restaurants around borough market stabbing people. they were running up going this is for allah, when we first saw them they say this is for allah and they stabbed this girl i don't know how many times, ten times, 15 times, she was going help me, help me, and i couldn't do nothing. get down! this is the scene as armed police entered one bar. they need to know immediately if the attackers are still there. as people fled the area, they were told to put their hands on their heads, again in a confused situation police need to tell the attackers from their victims. this is one of the latest images from the scene. it shows a man apparently immobile on the ground with canisters around his waist. in the background there appear to be other bodies.

it's not known how many attackers there were and what has happened to them. the london ambulance service says at least 20 casualties have been taken to six different hospitals. the mayor of london, sadiq khan, called the attacks barbaric and horrific. andy moore, bbc news. i have been talking to various eyewitnesses through the night we saw what happened. or parts of what happened on london bridge and then at borough market. and one man i spoke to was driving in the area on london bridge and saw the white van as it began the attack there on pedestrians who were walking on the bridge. i was actually on my way home before i was heading to the mosque for evening prayers. i was at monument station, at the junction there, and i saw the vehicle had crossed

from the south side of london bridge onto the northside and it's begun to do a vehicle u—turn back on to london bridge so that initially caught my attention because you're not allowed to do a u—turn there so when he began to do a u—turn there it caught my attention. the van was a few vehicles in front of me so i came on to london bridge after he did. once he got on to london bridge he came onto the pavement, ran people over, went on to the road and within a fraction of a second went onto the pavement again, ran over more people and then he crashed onto the barriers in front of southwark cathedral. the van... you were very close, as you were saying, very close to the van and it was being driven at what sort of speed would you say? something around a0 mph to 50 mph, could have been more than that. initially when i saw the van i thought it was a drunk driver. i think you took some pictures,

some video of the van. describe what you filmed? once the van had crossed the pavement where it was driving at the time, the men began to get out of the vehicles and at that point i stopped beside one of the casualties on the bridge, the person was completely unconscious and wasn't breathing at the time. i saw people had already attended to him. there were about four serious casualties on the bridge. then i went towards the van to see what was going on there. when i got to the van i saw the doors were open and i saw several all open bottles of alcohol. whoever was driving at the time jumped down towards the borough market down the steps and i noticed that there were another three casualties at a restaurant. how many casualties do you think

were caused by the van hitting people as it was being driven across london bridge? how many do you think it hit? there were four people. definitely more people were hit but i saw four people on the ground unconscious. then i saw another three people who had been stabbed in front of southwark cathedral. what is going through your mind now, you were so close to this attack? i'm really shocked. what shocked me the most, what happened after that. as soon as the incident happened at 10:07pm i called the police and i was speaking to the police saying i went to the van. armed officers were there right by the scene and the police began to evacuate the area and one of the officers asked me to return to my vehicle and evacuate the area.

when i got into my car i tried to drive away but the police had already cordoned off the area, that's when i got out of my vehicle and within a minute or so i heard two shots being fired. at that point i was on london bridge road. that's behind the station. maybe 30 seconds after hearing the gunshots fired i saw the police carrying another police officer who had been shot and they were carrying the officer towards me on london bridge road. so from what you understand that was a police officer who had been shot? he was wearing a police jacket. he had a badge on the jacket as well. i saw police officers carrying him to guy's hospital and i'm sure he's a police officer because someone

was shouting one of your officers has been shot. and so in terms of how long the whole incident took, how many minutes would you say from when you first noticed that white van doing the u—turn that caught your attention to the end? how long was that time period? it wouldn't be more than two minutes. but you think a large number of casualties were caused by that attack? definitely a large amount of casualties. we now know that in terms of the casualties london ambulance saying 30 people taken to various different hospitals. half a dozen different hospitals. half a dozen different hospitals in the metropolitan police

saying that six have lost their lives as well as the three suspected attackers who were shot dead by police and a few minutes after they first got the emergency call, eight minutes after they received emergency call eight minutes past ten, the three suspected attackers had been shot dead. just in terms of whether there may be any more attackers still at large and you can see police vehicles still going up and down the road here although i have to say this a lot calmer and less tense than it was initially, indicating that there is no—one else at large. let me tell you what the assistant commissioner of the metropolitan police were saying. asked if there could be more than three attackers he said that our current belief is that there were three attackers but we have still got more enquiries to do. he also ruled out the attackers having explosives with them although they

had hoped vests strapped to their bodies. we saw a picture of one of the bodies of one of the suspected attackers with what appeared to be canisters strapped to his body. that was a picture that was taken of that suspected assailant on the ground with those canisters strapped to his body. an alarming image but the police said that what appeared to be explosive vests of some kind were actually hoaxes and were not real. we have also been talking to redmond shannon who spoke to eyewitnesses after the atrocity. one man who stood up to me with a group of friends out on a night out they were getting to go home and they were getting to go home and they came across what happened at london bridge. the young man who didn't want to give me his name was extremely traumatised. understandably. he said he saw the

knife. he didn't want to tell me exactly what he saw happened but he said he has never been so scared in his life. you could see in his eyes how disturbed and upset he was. he basically then walked away and couldn't talk any more. he broke down at a number of points and i spoke to him. i also spoke to another witness who described the scene on the bridge and basically got caught up in it right there on london bridge at the time. i will play you something from him right now. laying on the floor like, they we re now. laying on the floor like, they were trying to reanimate them, and then we were with this guy who took us, and people were saying run, run, and this guy took us to his car and we saw the guy and we crossed the

bridge and we asked this guy to drop us bridge and we asked this guy to drop us off so he dropped us off, me and my friend, and in the police told us to run. obviously people in the area who had seen what happened were pretty traumatised by what they had seen. pretty traumatised by what they had seen. yeah. in particular, there was one other person who didn't speak to, who was far too upset, who was obviously involved on the bridge as well. probably about one hour after the incident had happened, maybe just after 11pm, police physically had to push him back from the scene. it appears he was on the scene and wa nted it appears he was on the scene and wanted to stay on the scene. he was in tears, unable to gather his thoughts, unable to do anything but scream thoughts, unable to do anything but scream at police and they had to scream at police and they had to scream back at him and tell him, for his own safety, for his own good, for the sake of the investigation, he needed to stay back. so some really disturbing and upsetting scenes there as the night went on.

the cord and grew, people were being turned around by police, as the night got on, a lot of people on a saturday night in london were looking to get home, looking to go south across the bridge and i am sure north from the south as well. they were being turned around, it was hard to get buses and taxis and many were completely full because of the closures at the tube stations. we don't yet know how many casualties there have been. although we are hearing at least 20 in treated. it does seem there has been a pretty large number of casualties, both from the van being driven at pedestrians on london bridge and the knife attacks around borough market. yes, and when i initially got to the scene, i could see directly down london bridge, so from monument tube station until police pushed

everybody away from there, but you could see right across the bridge and it's hard to know for sure but probably 10— 12 emergency response vehicles there, and you could see their flashing vehicles there, and you could see theirflashing lights. vehicles there, and you could see their flashing lights. obviously attempting to a significant number of people who were injured or worse, indeed, on the bridge. redmond shannon talking to me earlier. in terms of the emergency response, london ambulance are saying that more than 80 london ambulance service medics responded to the emergency here in central london at london bridge and at borough market. also one of the injured were british transport police make police officer, the assistant commissioner mark rowley talked about, who was stabbed around the borough market area, and received serious but not life—threatening injuries, we are hearing, and we spoke to one eyewitness actually who saw the british transport police officer

being led away by colleagues, pretty seriously injured, clearly. the police are also saying they will be reviewing police operations in and around the capital in the wake of this attack here, looking to strengthen their policing. not surprisingly, with additional offices. we know the government's emergency committee probe rob will be meeting under the chairmanship of the prime minister in the coming hours. —— committee cobra. we were talking to a home affairs corresponded tom symons with his thoughts on the latest terror atrocity to hit the uk. it's important to understand the geography, people who don't know london won't know this area but london won't know this area but london bridge runs across the city through this area to the area of london and i go here to go to the court a lot, london bridge station is one of the busiest in the country, and it is somewhere where people would have been heading to go

home after the pub. the bridge, around the corner from the bridge, is borough market which is an area where there are cafes, in the daytime food stalls, and people go for lunch and that sort of thing. now, we understand from eyewitnesses and clearly, we have to have a little warning there, eyewitnesses sometimes think they have seen something, describe things in various ways that isn't entirely accurate but what the eyewitnesses are centring on is a white van crashing into pedestrians at the southern end of the bridge, i think outside a pub which is there on the southern end of the bridge, two or three orfour southern end of the bridge, two or three or four possibly for men getting out of the van, armed with knives, attacking people on the pavement just near where knives, attacking people on the pavementjust near where the collision happened, then running down around the corner into the borough market area. and in the area are borough market area. and in the area a re lots of borough market area. and in the area are lots of pubs and cafes and have spoken to one eyewitness there who ru ns spoken to one eyewitness there who runs security for a number of those establishments and he said that he was getting reports by phone of people being stabbed in the cafe. it means that this took a bit of time

to develop. people were stabbed and then there were phone calls made. he went out and saw attacks happening in front of his eyes and was deeply shaken. he saw a woman in her early 20s stabbed severely and go to the ground very badly injured. he described one of the attackers having what the play canisters taped to his body, we have seen a picture from a photographer who seems to suggest this is a correct description. we don't want those canisters are. then there was some sort of police intervention, shots fired, we are sure about that, but police haven't said anything about the shooting. i think that's important. we need to understand why it is. to me, it suggests they are trying to work out exactly what shots were fired before putting out a brief actual statement of what happened, what the outcome was, how many attackers they were. and the other key piece of information we are still waiting for is even a rough idea of the number of people killed in the incident, the number of injuries, as you've discussed,

then, hospitals and the major trauma unit as part of london, very well used to this sort of thing and they will be under their full procedures for dealing with an emergency like this. so an awful lot going on. as you see police are still monitoring the scene. a police overhead, yes. it has been here most of the evening, circling around the same area and we often look where the helicopters are because it tells us what is going on but circling the same area, it is all quite this is an incident that is continuing. some false alarms around the place, some incidents that are links to this that happen to be happening on a busy saturday night in london. also finally some controlled lotions that we think again, police haven't confirmed this, but seem to be some bangs in the direction of the bridge are likely to be the police dealing with bags that have been dropped during this incident as it develops and to be sure that there is nothing nasty in any of those. and we know that we are hearing that kruger, the emergency committee, will meet later today. —— cobra. of course the

terror threat level was raised after the manchester attack at a critical but then brought down again to severe, wasn't it? yes, cobra meets to assess the security situation. the government has independent advisers to look at what the police say, look what the security services say, look what the security services say, and given independent view as to what the government should do about security. if the government's decision in the end, generally government accept the advice of their security analyst. after the manchester attack the analyst said the need to take you to critical which is the highest level in the five level system introduced in 2006, only the third time the level has been reached. the critical level meant that an attack may be imminent. after police got control of their understanding of the manchester bombing, they then dropped the level to severe which still means that is a severe threat ofan still means that is a severe threat of an attack, that is where we are now. if police are concerned that this attack may be linked to other

future attacks, there may be another imminent attack likely, we will go to critical again but it will be at the session for government based on the session for government based on the advice from their security a nalysts the advice from their security analysts who look at all the information that comes in. obviously we have had the westminster attack, we have had the westminster attack, we have had the westminster attack, we have had the manchester attack, and now this, all different in many ways. i think the first in the third of similar in an obvious respect. a car attack, followed by a knife attack. in this case, we have conspiracy, several men who appear in eyewitness accounts we have so far to have planned and carried out this together. in the first, khalid masood was on his own, a lone wolf. difficult for the police to detect. the middle attack, the bombing in manchester, is entirely different. there is a lot of evidence that from an abedi went abroad to libya, he came back shortly before the bombing, he rented various flights, there was some evidence that it is

possible he could have constructed his device and some of those flights, so it does look different. but the first and third look similar. and i think it's important to understand, i remember the bombings, to 77 bombings in 2005 we had the first attack, and two weeks later, another attempt to kill and maim on the london underground and luckily one that didn't come off. one attack often leads to another, the security situation is heightened, plot has become concerned they may be discovered, there may be pulled in to the net of investigation going on and they move forward with their plans. it's in the security services have to be a werrap and they very much will be in this case. obviously, there is a lot of praise for the security services and they talked about all of the plots they had foiled, you know, over a large period of time, since the 77 bombings. they also talked about the 3000 people they have to keep tabs on. those are people who could be involved in plotting as we speak. and there are not unlimited

resources to follow these people. it ta kes resources to follow these people. it takes one dozen, two dozen, possibly three dozen people on occasion to follow one person around the country 24- follow one person around the country 2a— seven for the resources are not there. i have to make decisions and it is very difficult than in a plot like this, it appears to be, you know, the planning may be quite basic, it maybe low hi rob van and get some weapons and do this and it doesn't take very long for several people who are like—minded to get together as an attack plan and carry it out. and if they aren't people who the police are aware of, the identities of, in a dance, then, you know, it becomes very difficult. one of the incident actually which was almost missed into things that have been going on in the last few months, there was a man arrested almost outside downing street with a ba gful of almost outside downing street with a bagful of lives. now, the theory is he was under surveillance, the police got as virus they could to gather as much evidence as possible of what he was intending to do and then arrested him. wood goes to show

how the decisions taken by the security services can be very difficult, can be split second and can cause life—and—death at stake so ethical stuff. the police will be very clear to get the identities of these men involved in this and then find out who they might be connected with to reassure the security system that there isn't something else planned tomorrow or the next day and thatis planned tomorrow or the next day and that is the key thing for the government to understand. you are saying that armed police seem to be on the scene quite quickly and obviously because of the heightened state of terror alert, it was critical but then brought down but even so, critical but then brought down but even so, a critical but then brought down but even so, a lot more armed police on the streets of central london. is a piece of information missing, we are not play when the first officers arrived here on the scene. i think the nearest officers would have been the nearest officers would have been the british transport police over the british transport police over the road at london bridge have some armed officers. i think the race problem likely to have been armed officers on the station at the time. it's clearly a potential terrorist target. we don't know when they arrived. i spoke to an eyewitness

who was their wallet was unfolding and he didn't say he saw any police officers. we haven't managed to work out when shots may have been fired s0 out when shots may have been fired so that is a key question we wanted to hear from the police or the sort of response was. but they are ready for something like this. i was briefed along with a number of crime journalists about the preparations, big uplift in the firearms officers that they could call on, notjust the metropolitan police but all around the country, the civil nuclear constabulary have armed officers that can be used in this situation and a higher level of training, serious weaponry capable of really holding an area in a sustained gunfire with terrorist, not looking that happened in this case but something about rainfall and interestingly, trained to shoot to stop a vehicle to choose a change in the procedure is the police have. previously, they had a method of working which prevented them shooting in a vehicle because an uncontrolled vehicle can be dangerous but in this case clearly you can dangerous but in this case clearly you can see dangerous but in this case clearly you can see that may be a decision they may have to to shoot somebody

out of a car. it doesn't seem to have happened in this case but it gives you an indication of the level of training that officers are now having to go through to deal with things like this. of course london now, you know, another terror attack and we have seen so many in europe. people are having to get used this way of life, aren't they? we saw paris, berlin, nice, brussels, the list goes on on. the metropolitan police, when parliament was attacked, they had said they need people to remain calm and vigilant and alert them they also put out advice about be aware of what is going on, run from the scene of what is going on, run from the scene if something is happening, hide and tell the police, report what is going on. that is important as well. they put that advice out so it shows they are trying to get m essa g es it shows they are trying to get messages out. rather dramatic advice. it is. it