metropolitan police and in london bridge and borough market and then eyewitness accounts we have heard from on-site in terms of what has happened over the last three hours. this incident reportedly happening about 3:10 minutes ago, the beginnings of it. from what they've been able to report. and as we get to -- excuse me, let me correct myself. about four hours ago in terms of when officers were responding to incidents of a vehicle that collided with pedestrians on london bridge. that's about four hours ago. then what happened after that, they're saying that there were stabbings in borough market, and, again, you can see on your screen where that is, and then armed officers responding to shots that were fired. so that's basically all the information that they have given us officially. coming from the metropolitan police. either the interviews with nbc

news, or through the various distribution channels that they have been putting out information on. i also want to update you on what we're hearing from the london ambulance twitter account, and the london ambulance services saying that this "we are responding to an incident alongside other emergency services at london bridge. we have sent a number of ambulance crews advanced paramedics and special response teams to the scene with the first of our medics arriving in six minutes." "an advanced trauma team from london's air ambulance -- again, reports earlier about helicopters in the air. we have reports of one, two and three, hovering in the incident areas. and they go ton say, they've also dispatched a -- trauma team by car as well, and they go on to say the london ambulance service, that, "we are working

closely with other members of the emergency as much as at the scene with our priority being given to get people to safety and ensure they receive the medical help they need as quickly as possible. our initial priority is to assess the level and nature of injuries, and ensure that those people in most need are treated first, and taken to the hospital" nap ." that is the latest from the london ambulance service and what they were able to tell us in the way of deplowing all of what you just saw seconds ago, ambulances to the area, and also deploying the trauma team they were describes via air and via ground to try to get quickly to london bridge and borough market. we were getting the reporting for the metropolitan police, stabbings and a car a vehicle colliding with pedestrians, and,

again, we don't know the number of fatalities and don't know if had there have been fatalities as of yet either. lucy khavanov has been following and reporting there from london. lucy, we're now, as i was saying seconds ago, four hours in, at the top of the hour. very early morning there in london. >> reporter: very early morning. still an ongoing situation. you were talking about the ambulances and the first aid response. we're now getting notice london's hospital located right near london bridge, where the first part of this attack took place, as well as saint thomas hospital, say they are "on lockdown" to keep patients and staff safe. we don't know what that means. perhaps this is a normal emergency step they take in this kind of emergency situation. does it mean they are under threat at the moment? we don't know. it certain escalates things somewhat. let's run through the latest.

we did hear from the state department, the u.s. state department, issuing a statements saying they condemn the cowardly attacks, standing together with the people in london. the london mayor, described the bridge area incidents as "deliberate and cowardly attack on innocent londoners" and we are now talking about attacks, two attacks, or perhaps attacks in two locations on civilians near the thames river this saturday night. something that both the british prime minister and the splis po declared terrorist incidents. to walk viewers through how it unfolded, the attack began just after 10:00 p.m. local time. a busy saturday night. a white van seen sort of speeding down london bridge heading south, plowing into a crowd of pedestrians. multiple casualties, according to witnesses and the police. some witnesses, in fact, reported that this van was actively targeting groups of pedestrians on the bridge, and then reportedly crashed into a

bus stop. now, it also appears there were stabbings at nearby bore or market cloor -- borough market if you're familiar with the area. police rushed to the scene there. possibly part of the same incident. we don't quite know. it could be that the perpetrator or the driver or people in the car got out and ran off into the borough market. that's how some reports describe it, but it's not something we independently verified. we know there are two locations being searched and investigated at the moment, police trying to clear civilians from the area, trying to treat people who have been wounded. we know people are wounded and don't know the numbers or about fatalities. certainly a harrowing experience just a week after that terrorist attack in manchester, whiches was the deadliest here in the uk since 2005, when terrorists targeted the london transportation system. so this is the first, if it pans

out to be a terrorist attack, as theresa may and police have said, this would be a return to that back near london. quite eerily similar to the westminster attack, a vehicle turned into a weapon of war, a knife used to kill a person there. eerily similar to that incident. guys? >> lucy, we were showing a picture of the alleged van associated, or alleged vehicle associated with this incident, and sometimes, you know, based on the city that you are in around the world, there's certain markings or certain types of vans commonly seen in a city or in a country. this van that we have on screen on the left-hand side here with that sort of round, could be a logo or something, or this type of van at all, is it associated, common at all? it may not be. >> reporter: it doesn't strike a bell with me but that doesn't

necessarily mean it's not common. but not something we've been seeing on the street. quite honestly, scarier about this is how ordinary this van look s it looks like one if not dozens of hundreds of vans that roll around in these streets near london as well as in new york. the ordinary nature of this vehicle which then did become, it appears, at least, a weapon of terror, yet again, of course, this happened in nice in berlin. just how easy it is to carry out these kinds of attacks and how difficult for authorities to prevent against these kinds of attacks. an ordinary white van. smo sort some sort of logo. can't quite make it out. very difficult to anticipate this and prevent it from happening in the first place. >> one more question. back to the picture of the white van. it appears to be on a sidewalk, all doors open and that left-hand side, lower back

bumper seems to be slightly inde indented, at least based on this picture, but it's a little fuzzy. we don't know how that van ended there. whether it was collision, going slow, fast, or how it reached that particular location, but we can see that the lights are on, all doors open and at least by that lower black band on the left-hand side, it appears to have some sort of indentation. again, the alleged, potentially a picture of that alleged vehicle associated with colliding with pedestrians. lucy khavanov city with us. cal perry also still with us, who was just in london, and you were describing earlier to us, cal, just the tension as well as the -- as the anger with what happened in manchester, and now certainly after what's happened tonight, but still a durability that certainly uk citizens have? >> this is the keep calm and carry on people. >> yes. >> goes back to world war ii for

londoners. a city that is -- you never are used to these things but this is a city that's lived through a lot. say that. one of the things we should talk about is social media and there are a number of things circulating on social media we have not confirmed. at nbc news we are methodical about what we report. one of the things happening on social media are reports of controlled explosions. close to borough market. our matt bradley is close to that scene and will monitor that and it would lend itself, you and i, richard, talked about this, the concern there were potentially explosives involved. whether or not they were planted, whether or not they were carried, certainly this was, as you put it, a moving crime scene and that is something we are going to keep an eye on and we will try to confirm as quickly as we can. i want to play for you a piece of video. a piece of video taken in a near by pub. a bar, for those in the united states. again, crowded, saturday night. you see it there on the left-hand side of your screen.

police at this point are rushing in. and they are being aggressive. in their instructions to the patrons. this is what we call -- a -- a posture that would indicate that something is still going on. this is video from earlier, but it gives you an idea on a saturday night how crowded these establishments are in that area. if we are to take that map we had on the right side of our screen, you will see that borough market is just to the south of london bridge. it is not far at all. on foot it would take you less than five minutes to run. that is what police are concerned may have happened. the other thing that police are going to be doing, besides taking everybody's cell phone off them because we live in an age our hands have become our cell phones. taking everybody's cell phones going through cct footage, talking to eyewitnesses. i want to play a bit of eyewitness video. >> -- saw first stabbing.

stabbed, thought it was a joke. next, went on the side, and i saw the blood coming out. and -- he's been stabbed, stabbed, and run -- [ inaudible ] side of the road and running up and started stabbing a woman. help me, help me, and -- three guys, [ inaudible ] stabbed -- trying to pick up on that, and see that? right there? a chair or something. i tried to pick up -- something. what was it? ah -- what do they call? what? anyways -- tried to get out and get away from the woman, and -- [ inaudible ] anyway, they ran up the road. everybody, run, terrorists, terrorists! killing everybody! [ inaudible ] just running, stabbed a -- i saw that [ inaudible ] saw it, and went up the road.

anyway, up to -- police, police, and a police officer. [ inaudible ] saying, and eastern -- stabbing everyone. get the -- please, everyone. and it took police about 10, 15 minutes to get there. >> reporter: authorities tell you, if you can run, run. if you can hide, hide. if you cannot do either of those things, you fight. if might have been difficult to understand on a thick accent, a saturday night helicopter hovering overhead, but people, as this witness said we using pint glasses and chairs to throw back at at least one of the attackers in one of the establishments in borough market. our tom cavanagh joins us now. former atf, law enforcement analyst an expert in all of this. i want to talk briefly about controlled explosions. a lot of reports about controlled explosions. what does that mean? >> -- thing call add disrupter

and basically to describe a shotgun blast that can shoot out a jet of water. it can shoot out a slug. and it can open soup cabs, cans metal container, open bags to examine contents. put a camera -- shoot it, the thrust, has a loud bang. the item -- [ inaudible ] so usually what happens in these cases, you see assailants do not have bombs or explosives -- allowing people [ inaudible ] can't be identified right away, suspicious items that the bomb squad must render safe. >> what should we be looking for now, jim, as this unfolds? we are flying a bit blind. watching taped video looped on the left side of the screen. what should we be looking for now? should we -- what indications around the city of london should we be looking for that would give us an indication whether or

not this is over? >> yeah. i think -- i think we're seeing -- with the reporters of london have been reporting, police activity in those various areas, once they've got the i.d. from the guy, they can spin up all the intelligence on who he is and how he's interconnected. something ourselves -- we all go out -- [ inaudible ] in the center, just our e-mail contacts alone. and what happens is, when the officers on the scene grab the guy's electronic device, you know, then they can start telling who he is and who are his connections. and that starts to move very rapidly through the city. his relatives, place of residence. vehicles. and also, you know, when they get into his electronic device, which they can get in pretty quick, usually. it's encrypted, there might be -- leads to isis on that device. once they have his name and

that's sent in and if it's a digital guy, once he name is sent in to scotland yard, those intelligence officers in, there they're on his facebook page. we did that stuff all the time. got the name, going right to his public accounts and could be standing there with an isis flag, a gun or some other thing. determining who this guy is, and sometimes through electronics, digital footprint, and that can happen even before they can get to his house to search it, because, you know, the speed of the digital world. so that kind of intelligence can roll it in, and then the intelligence overlay, guys like, you know, coleman, nantz, deeply involved in spinning that up to get information so that commanders on-what is this connected to? is this, you know, a lone mad dog, i like to say, or a crazy dog, rather than a wolf? is this a lone -- crazy person

that's done this? and the reports, not confirmed by lucy as nbc learned so far, but talked about earlier on the air. not a confirmed report, and from a witness, that three men had, were going through the market stabbing people. that would be an unusual event. that would not be a lone mad dog. there's three people running, assaulting, stabbing people, and also you mentioned earlier, a firearm. heard that in the last hour or so. we don't know if the firearm connected to the assailants was just found in the vehicle, dropped by the assailants. we don't know if it was discharged by the assailants, by the police. we know the police fired their weapons. we know there was some weapons fired but we don't have the role of the firearm or firearms played in this event yet. were they found?

discharged? was there more? was it a shotgun, in the car? in a residence? an active part of the attack? that question has not been given to us, but the police know the answer, and if there's more than one attacker, they're going to have a lot of am in addition to work with to limit this down and who else -- was it just the people involved? so that's, the digital -- you know, because the police as well -- you can -- trying to get information -- [ inaudible ] called and -- like to get them in the field, something i can give to them. don't just -- [ inaudible ] give me something i can act on. that is something, hey, he's related to this guy, and we know he has -- we can get an order,

do something positive sow thwart any other attacks that could be in place. >> jim, stick with me, please. we're work on the quality of that phone line, but i don't want you to go anywhere. i'm relying on your expertise. this discussion of the gun was something i hadn't thought of. could have been dropped by law enforcement for all we know. we know from the police a car, used by at least one attacker. talked about eyewitness reports of assailants going through restaurants stabbing people. take a listen to this. >> you, you, you saw the man? >> i saw the man, but now i can't say -- >> with a knife? >> yeah, with a knife. but i can't describe the face, the clothes. nothing. >> did you see him injuring people? injury? >> i saw just dropping a thing on the floor. you know? like, that is a table, dropping everything, with the knife on the floor and i run out and that's it. i don't see anything more.

>> how many people were in the restaurant? >> like -- maybe full. like 60, 100. i don't know, man. right now, i don't know. >> which restaurant was there? >> el pasteur. >> so you were in the restaurant? >> yeah. i was work in the restaurant, and all of a sudden these three men came in to the restaurant? >> yeah. that man came to the restaurant, come to the worker, quickly go around to the -- behind the restaurant. >> what was the first thing that you heard, then? how did you know what was happening? >> because -- i mean, it's -- i saw the face. you know jand tand the night. finally, i can't describe the face, but i see everything. and time for everyonewhewhere ae the man and screaming and i ran out. >> amazing people can be so is a

sin succinct in recalling trauma. anyone who's been around attacks it's difficult to keep your whiting about you. this gentleman talking about how people were moving psychotically through the restaurant. stabbing people. wielding knives. i want to ask you a question nobody really wants to talk about or say. is this the new reality in cities like london? >> well it is. of course, we've seen it so many times. seen it in london, in paris, in brussels, in nice. we've seen it in cities -- we've seen it across the globe. this is a low-grade war that al qaeda and their -- they want and they're delivering it. and pressuring in holdouts and hideouts, pressured by the world's armies there, they strike out and get people to act

on this death cult, and to give their lives. it's the formula of al qaeda. you know? suicide. suicide is the power they hold over the west. they try to promote that. al qaeda promoted that. and isis is delivering on it as well. and -- you know, they morph into different organizations but birth from the same plant, and that's what they're doing all over the world, and they can get people infiltrated enough, directly, direct contacts, as you know, from preachers of hate, and agents of influence to, you know, people on the web. like anwar mulaucki on the web. and london has to think about

changing some of their sidewalk- especially in the high-traffic, very public international centers like westminster and london bridge. people should not be able to jump the sidewalk. you can't do that in the whole city of london, of course, we understand. but you can do it in these very high-traffic pedestrians well-known tourist places. [ inaudible ] because, you know, they're starting to have these attacks and already had a couple. so, you know, it's time to change now. and -- you've got to be fast, agile, start making the moves, and the government sometimes, they're slow. it takes us a long time to build a strong defense at the white house. we have to talk about it, have committees about it, appropriate money, we all say we're going to do it but it's still not there

yet. that's the way we move. not fast enough to beef terrorists. we need to be as governments more agile, especially in places like london bridge and westminster. hopefully they will rethink some approaches to that. you can't stop all of this, though. they could do it in another way. another fashion. they could take another strategy, just like running into the pub. but you one into the pub, you risk getting hit in the head with a pint glass, too, and the those patrons were fighting back, and you know, it's harder for a pedestrian walking down the street to -- >> can you see there on the left side of the screen one of those pubs where we heard an eyewitness at a nearby pub talking about exactly that, fighting back. our nbc news, law enforcement analyst nick cavanaugh, thank you, approaching 2:30 in london, condemnation, the united states condemns the cowardly attacks that targeted innocent civilians

in london. currently treating these at terrorist incidents. the united states stands ready to provide any assistance to authorities in the united kingdom as they may request. all of this happening, richard, we should say, president trump is planning a trip to the united kingdom shortly. >> cal, interesting about the reporting you were just doing as you were looking at the video coming in, not only from eyewitnesses but those, those pieces of video they shot along the way, that they were able to give to us. there was one individual who was, the employee of el pasteur, sounds like a french restaurant, he was saying, three individuals, and then you have the other video that came from yore eyewitness. the eyewitness here in this video, of the pub, of that bar where law enforcement are saying, stay down, stay down, and fiona day, the social media distribution editor there in london from nbc news had interviewed, that's who shot

that video, that interview of that individual inside this pub, gerard, a 47-year-old man who was there and took notes. notes that she provided to us on what was happening in this video you see on the left-hand side. gerard shvowel said there were three men all in their 30s. he said he was in shock. as you have been describing, yet still able to so cogently describe what happened, that they threw pint glasses, you were saying, they threw chairs at the attackers and then said my mate's been stabbed. they're stabbing everyone, according to what he was hearing. so three individuals, and then we also heard that from the other eyewitness we were playing from el pasteur and then "the sunday times" also saying, at least on their front page, that three stab passersby. so in terms of the "times" is

reporting, they're saying three individuals. of course, nbc news, not being able to confirm these pieces of information as of yet, as we work to trai triang goo lau work to trai triang goo lalate t the data. since we've heard these are called terror incidents, who are the suspects? how many are there? and then the "sunday times" speaking of, again, the "times," "the sunday times" this is their front page that we have gotten ahold of. it says terrorists mow down crowds on london bridge. "the sunday times." that's what those in the uk will be waking up and reading on "the sunday times." terrorists mow down crowds on london bridge. you can see a subhead line, three stabbed passers by is what i was alluding to.

and joining us, a national security analyst. those are some of the things that we're at least able to glean from different sources at the moment, john. what do you make of these pieces of information that are still coming in now at the bottom of the hour, 2:00 a.m., in london? >> well, obviously, there's a lot of details we need to learn, as your last guest indicated. but what i'm recalling now is the magnitude of the problem that the british are dealing with. you know, as we close in on isis and particular in syria and iraq, they're being squeezed out, and this is the kind of thing that they're doing. i know there's been no claim of attribution yet, but it will not surprise me if sometime in the next 24 hours isis in particular, or al qaeda, claims not to have organized this, perhaps, but as one of their compactants carried it out will take credit for it.

i'd be surprised if that doesn't happen. this is a problem british are facing, underlined b by the fac they are currently -- i know this intelligence and police force very well and work with them. they're among the best in the world. they will find these perpetrators. i know they have some suspects in custody, but they will solve this case through some of the means that your last guest indicated, the forensics, but as good as they are, they're having to keep track of at least 400 people who have returned from syria and another 600 trying to go, but were stopped from going. and that's kind of what we know publicly. i suspect the magnitude of the problem they're dealing with is much greater than that, for a small however capable intelligence service. and britain also has the problem that, there are many parts of the country that are essentially

not well integrated into the rest of the country ethnically, as a result of basically people streaming back, various eruptions occurred during the empire and settling in london but never quite integrating into british society. so a lot of people there, right for explore taitation, as we sa 2005, a terror attack organized by an al qaeda member and involved three other people radicalized way back in 2005 to carry that out. so this is the worst thing that's happened, this and manchester, since 2005. so i think in the case of britain we're looking at a country that is incredibly capable in counterterrorism, but has a problem that dwarfs ours in terms of volume or in terms of the ratio of problems to population. and these attacks we're seeing now, this is a pattern, of course, perhaps some of your

other guests have noted that, that we now see these vehicle attacks in at least berlin, nice, earlier in the uk. we've seen a couple in the united states. there was a, one at the ohio state university, for example, back in november, i think. so this is something that al qaeda began to endorse. particularly their yemen branch, ban to endorse as weapon back in 2010. that is, explicitly saying, use vehicles as weapons. use them to mow down people, like lawn mowers. and that message was picked up by isis, which has, through its propaganda, particularly as it has come under stress and strain in syria and iraq, has begun as you know, to encourage people to use any weapons at hand. knives, guns, anything they can get their hands on, to -- to kill people they regard as infidels. so -- you know, i'm looking at

this and thinking, with some sympathy, not just for the british people, who are suffering these attacks, but also for former colleagues in the intelligence and police services there, who are struggling against a problem that is in terms of their society mammoth in size. >> john -- >> first thoughts, anyway. >> so let's move this forward, because we were talking about this earlier tonight. as the bells go off there, clearly, in london, and in the uk, what's happening in the united states? because we all understand now that terrorism is global, and you made that -- that -- that comparison of what we need to dole with in the united states versus what's happening in the uk. what's happening in cities like washington, d.c. and new york and chicago and l.a.? >> well, i think everyone here will be on heightened alert anytime there is a terrorist

attack like this, in any part of the world. particularly once we were associate the attack with some known perpetrators. we have a couple of advantages. one is that since 9/11, you we have worked very hard at collecting information, but also sharing information from local law enforcement all the way up to the strategic level, places like cia and fbi. and i used to say, if someone stops these days, if a highway pa controlman in maryland outside of baltimore stops a car, and discovers a load of suspicious people with weapons that appear intended for use in a terrorist attack if that highway patrolman can't dip into a database that involves information collected overseas by cia and in the united states by fbi, and learn something from it, then we're not doing or

jobs, and i think we have reached the point now where we share information across state and local eins, a lines and amo intelligence services at a dramatically improved level compared to where we were before 9/11. now, in europe, they're in a rudimentary state when it comes to that. they do share information, but these are, despite the european union, which has a very nascent intelligence-sharing mechanism, these are still when it comes to national security, independent countries that strive to share, but do not have the same, i would say also seamless sharing that we have in the united states now. so here, when one of these things occurs in -- in the uk, i can tell you that some of our local law enforcement people will be deploying to london. to work closely with the british. particularly large police services. i don't know precisely this

fact, but in the past, i would expect the nypd, for example, and some representatives of some other major metropolitan services here, police services, to deploy over there and not only work closely with the british on this, but also to try and take lessons learned from it for our own safety here. the nypd has been particularly effective at that, under -- under a number of its leaders. so here i think we will see heightened alert. i think i would tell people we have such a good information sharing mechanism here that people will be well served by that. you'll always have to put in the caveat that people have used for decades, which is, we have to be 100% excellent every day and they just have to be lucky once. you can never totally guarantee success, but the other thing we will be doing here, i'm quite

confident that even at this hour, our intelligence and law enforcement united nations here are in the offices, working to share whatever we have, both in terms of information. share that with the british, and also assist in any forensic duties that come from information they find either electronic information or documentary information, comparing that to our databases. so, you know, i think that's the kind of activity that kicks off automatically anytime there's a major terrorist attack. particularly in an allied country as close to us as great britain. despite the recent turbulence we've seen in the intelligence-sharing arena, you'll recall the -- [ inaudible ] the perpetrators and some of the weapons used in

manchester. and i know that after that, you know, the prime minister and others in britain expressed their dismay and concern and i'm sure here there were steps taken to tighten up our control of any information we have from them, and we would certainly not hold anything back at this point. we would push everything we have to them. this is an area -- there is -- since 9/11, there has been developed in a way a global coalition against terrorism that works better than it did before, but it's still not perfect, but the relationship among particularly the commonwealth countries and the united states that is british, australia, new zealand and canada and the unite is about as seamless as intelligence sharing gets. so i think that's -- that's kind of, i think, the u.s. persecutive at this point. concern, sharing, and --

heightened alert here, because, you know, isis in particular has put no boundaries on its encouragement of its -- it's adherence to carry out attacks like this, but i think we do have the advantages of sharing, we have the advantages of size and now of experience over the years since 9/11. >> and that post-9/11 world, as you were intimating here, john, are the inbeds that come from large police forces like the nypd that have been stationed in terms of counterintelligence efforts and specialists from the nypd, based around the world, full time, year after year after year. when i was in southeast asia they had one or two embeds, if you will, there with counterterrorism efforts. so that coordination functioning so importantly, and so seamlessly as we're watching on the screens right now, but

behind the scenes, really. despite who the law enforcement -- >> yeah, if you live in new york, you know -- of course, in the unite, you have to worry, wherever you are, but if you live in new york, you probably have the sign of protective service, in the urban area, in the world -- it is truly a, truly a marvel, and the point you make is exactly right. that they deploy overseas, embed overseas. if anything happens in the tri-state area around new york it terms of acquisition of materiels that can be used for weapons or bombs, they know about it, and, again, someone can always, you know, work hard to allude that, but they are as good as it gets. >> always great to have your perspective, john mclaughlin,

nbc news national security analyst answer former acting director of the cia. giving us a lot of behind-the-scenes perspective on what we're seeing and what we're learning today at this hour with these two terrorist, at least two terrorist incidents that have happened there in central london. thank you so much, sir. cal per rishgs always great to have somebody like john to tell us the way we are coordinating cross-border and to really understand what's happening behind all of these brave men and women that are on the ground in the streets there in london. >> reporter: yeah. and in the coming days, we are going to hear talk of intelligence, talk of not sharing of intelligence. on the left side of your screen, the men and women who protect london every day. new video, from earlier, but new to us at nbc news. you can see the scale of the response. important to remember as theresa may, the prime minister of the united kingdom heads into what is a covert meeting a top-level

meeting. this is not over yet. the metropolitan police have not given all-clear to people around london. less than two weeks ago now in manchester, some three hours away from loondon during a ariaa grande concert that killed 22 people. we heard from ariana grande. she is in manchester, visiting those victims of that concert. you see the tweet. very simple. praying for london with the heart. the other thing, richard, continuing to follow the story closely, the eyewitness reports from the scene nap is one of the things that police will be focusing on. we have another one for you here now. take a listen. >> and it's approximately 10:00 in the evening. a woman probably in her early 20s and staggered into the park and was bleeding heavily from the neck, and from her mouth, it did appear to myself and to my

friend that afraid she'd been cut and people went to her aid, and the pub was then closed. we saw police on the roads nearby, and then as we were told to leave the area by armed police, as we were running away from there i could see to my left, that a further individual was having cpr performed on them by the emergency services. and -- >> how -- how quick did the paramedics a rive? >> at that point, i don't know know with the woman performing cpr. the police were there immediately when we left the pub. i didn't see an ambulance at that particular stage leaving the pub. >> so to be clear, there was a woman who was bleeding and appeared to have been cut, and there was also another person receiving cpr? >> that's correct. two individuals. one that came into the pub, who

it appeared she was cut, bleeding from the neck, as i say, and then another person outside the pub having cpr performed on her by the emergency services. >> if you're confused there by the banners on the top of the screen, that was off the bbc. british broadcasting corporation who have gone, you would expect, into rolling national coverage as we have here as well. just in to nbc news, at least 20 victims. 20 people wounded, taken to six different hospitals nap is according to the ambulance services coming out of london. we heard earlier from our lucy khavanov? our london bureau, the hospitals have gone boo lockdown. at least one in particular in lockdown, not necessarily out of the ordinary. one of the things authorities try to do, to confirm all victims are victims and none of the victims are attackers. i am joined by steve clemons. very grateful to have steve with us. the washington editor at large at the atlantic, msnbc news contributor. steve, i'm old enough to

remember when al qaeda bombed a train station in spain in 2004, trying to throw the elections there into chaos. it is the month of ramadan. elections are right around the corner in the uk. what do you make of this? is this kind of the perfect storm? or is it possible the times was random? >> you know, this is speculative now, but there have been a number of isis and al qaeda calls for this kind of action. of course, the uk prime minister theresa may right after the grande concert said another attack was expected, almost imminently. so while this has been a bit of a time, london and the whole nation of the united kingdom has been on edge. my sense is that this is an ongoing set of cell activity. sounds like there are three -- three perpetrators potentially in this case, allegedly in this case, that they have been called to action. people are brought forward. we will find out whether there was some tooling and puppet

string pulling by isis formerly or al qaeda formerly. interesting is, osama bin laden's son, just two weeks ago also called for this kind of attack and seen as one of the new rising stars in the global terrorism movement. sort of a new face, if you will, who's come in. although we haven't seen his face, actually, in years. he avoids photography, avoids the limelight like his, in contrast to his father, but i think right now it is the same kind of thing we've seen before, but british are a resilient society and we'll see how this goes. one thing i'd add, i'm very happy john mclaughlin talked about the issue of intelligence sharing. very important. this is the first serious test whether or not there has been damage to that relationship in intelligence sharing or things are clicking back into place because of the seriousness of this the united states, the five eyes agreement of the close commonwealth countries with the united states are still sharing and coordinating as closely as

they ever did. theresa may after the last bombing incident that in was going to stop with regard to that particular incident. we don't know what the major t f that is now. i'm sure we'll know soon, but it shows how vital to have a great relationship and how threatened the british felt by the united states just a week and a half ago. >> we are watching on the left side of our screen there some of the, as authorities would call it, some of the walking wounded. excuse me. making their way from the scene. steve clemons is with us now. steve what do we look for in the coming hours and what do we look for in the coming days? you talk about the importance of intelligence sharing. what's the potential backlash to what happened recently between the united states and the united kingdom when it comes to intelligence sharing post that manchester bombing? >> president trump committed to prime minister may it wouldn't happen again. that we would get more -- more

serious about that, and actually try to clamp down on any of the sharing of information which some suspect was coming out of the department of homeland security, into the press and into the media, in a way that infuriated british intelligence services. so hopefully in this particular case, with, when the seriousness of this is greater than it seems in a single individual. we've got potentially three in this case and perhaps others involved as we've seen in other parts of, both in france and belgium. i was in the belgium airport when it was bombed. just arrived 30 seconds after the bomb had gone off in that hall and have been in similar situations. it's in these situations when they're unfolding you see fantastic intelligence work. there's a lot we can share with the british potentially once we have data, financial data, and chatter data relationship data between some of the perpetrators and so the british will want that from us, i think, and other

allies that they have, because you have a global system of coordination and communication and if that is seamless, as john mcglog lynn said that is a very good thing. a hiccup in that and any wall of resistance since the last incident when the united states saw the divulge -- people were divulging information they shouldn't have, that was classified from british sources, that would be very, very damaging in this case. so we'll find out over time as this comes in, but i think right now you've got, as john mclaughlin laid out methodically, a serious -- what's going on on the front line now and basically dealing with trying to catch these perpetrators and shut down the situation, but a big intelligence apparatus already beginning to identify and track all relationships that these people may have had once they begin identifying suspects and i imagine they've already begun to debit phi some of those suspects. >> we've had two significant

terror attacks in the united kingdom in less than two weeks. i think what we're going to see a little tomorrow is people asking how did this happen? and what could be different going forward? what's going to be taking place in that covert meeting and what can be different going forward? because people are certainly going to wonder how this happened and how it continues to happen especially with people who are "known to authorities." >> i think it's a very hard challenge. great britain is an open society. there are vulnerabilities in open societies. e don you don't have the ability to stop a van from jumping a curb everywhere inside that country. and i think one of it is going to call for greater vigilance and -- vigilance across the board, from all parties, and i think vigilance in communities if they see suspicious people planning or acting on something. i think there will be new attention and you'll see authorities begin to reach out to communities and ask them for their help and cooperation in

identifying anyone that's behaving strangely or something along these lines. that's one piece of this. fundamentally, there's very little an open society can do to create a foolproof plan. i think intelligence, national security and police authorities are going to look at this and ask, how did they miss this? particularly, we're speculating. three or more players connected, if john is right, isis and al qaeda had some role in this, then they're going to stay, how did we miss this? where was the intelligence failure? let's drill into that and make sure that we plug that up, and try and fix that. britain is an open society, a diverse site, has problems and people that can be highjacked and self-radicalized or radicalized from places they might have been before and i think resilience and just kind of keeping an eye on the ball is what's going to end up being the only strategy they have at the moment. >> steve clemons, sir, thank you for joining us. editor at large at the

"atlantic." richard, before i toss back to you, you heard steve clemons talk about british society. british society is tough, will come back. the other thing british society is, well integrated. this is going to be integrated . this is going to be at the core of the discussion in the coming days. right now of course the priority is to treat the victims, at least 20 people wounded in two straight terror attacks, being treated at six different hospitals. it's the weighing of these freedom who live in and around the united kingdom and asking people to keep an eye out. that's something we tell people here in the united states all the time, certainly as we review our security procedures here. we'll keep an eye on what he says. we approach 3:00 in the morning in london five hours after two separate terror attacks. >> integrated, intersectional, one of those great metropolitan

centers around the world that has so much of everything in one place. he also mentioned soft versus hard targets. this is a case where the terrorists, the suspects here going after folks that were having a good time on a saturday night right there on london bridge, rights there in borough market where they were trying to enjoy themselves, hitting again a soft target. so difficult to defend. some of the headlines we'll see tomorrow on the parents there in the uk, i'll take you first to the "the sun" on sunday. terror on london bridge. and again they report certain numbers of those killed. we do not have those confirmed yet by nbc news. i take you to "the daily mail." carnage on streets of capital. london in terror. and a picture that we have seen all this evening there of

ambulances and police in the streets and this is earlier. this is a picture of what it looks like now. it is a little bit different. it's a bit quieter that the hour. they could have moved farther along in what they are doing there as they get close to 3:00 a.m. in terms of identifying sfekts. of course where we're getting a lot of our indications that the police are also going to -- are witnesses, eyewitnesss and what they are saying. i'd like to share this with you. >> well, again, you know, we were upstairs just in front of borough market in an airbnb on the third floor. we heard a lot of noise. as we looked outside, you see a lot of fore and confusion outside on the streets. then before the police came again there's a lot going on. people running in different directions. thankfully, again, the police were able to come -- >> the police were telling

everybody to evacuate and we were looking out of our windows seeing what was going on. we heard gunshots and big crashes, and then they told us to evacuate. so -- >> how many police? >> i wouldn't -- >> at the beginning there weren't very many. but quickly, in the span of five minutes there were an insurmountable amount of police officers, firefighters, ambulances, they kept running through which kept growing and growing, which was great. >> there was a lot of gunshots and loud noises. now like there's a lot of police and loud -- >> unfortunately they didn't tell us exactly what was occurring. they just said for our safety they wanted us to run as far away as possible. >> we are peeking outside of the window so they just told us to come down. it was up to us really if we

were going to stay there. >> you've got to get out. >> you've got to get out and get out now. >> we saw people coming out of their apartments without shoes. they were in their pajamas. >> again, it was a lot of fumbling at the police. thankfully they were able to take control pretty quickly. there's people who were out -- >> is anyone injured or -- >> we saw an ambulance coming in and a few coming out. but there's been a few injuries. >> we heard there's been a decent amount of injuries. >> koozcasualties. >> lucy kafanov there in the london bureau. been watching the story all evening. we're showing some of the headlines for tomorrow, lucy, which you'll with seeing but many londoners, too, those who went to bed early they didn't have news of this as of yet. terror on london bridge. >> that's right. >> from "the sun kwoilts. we were mentioning what "the

times" won showing in terms of their headline. all of these saying terror and then london bridge. this is a place we go to enyoi ourselves. >> absolutely. another similarity that occurred to me as i was watching you talk to these headlines is how similar some of these headlines were compared to what we saw in manchester a week ago. carnage concert is one. now we're seeing carnage in london. a lot of people probably tuned in as we speak this all began to unfold just after 10:00 p.m. local time here, not that late. a lot of people would have been out and about. something that is deeply disturbing when it zrieks to close to another terrorist incident that hit up there in manchester. i know you were talking about the 20 people who were taken to six different hospitals. i just want to expand on the response we've seen from the first aid medical emergency

services. quite interesting. we don't have the exact number of the casualty numbers but we get this impression that they really went out of their way to try to get as many people as possible to medical treatment, to safety. we heard that they were doing evacuations, that the medical authorities, their first aid emergency response teams were taking people out on life rafts up the tims river. they were also taking the walking wounded, herding them on buses and taking them to liverpool street in order to do the bare minimum response there. so very significant response by the first aid authorities here, richard. >> lucy cavkafanov. thank you. we expect there to be a cobra meeting with national leadership including the prime minister theresa may to be happening within hours. that would be similar to a situation room gathering.

we don't have tall details yet. we don't know fully what the arsenal that may have been at their -- in terms of whether they could use firearms, cars, as well as knives. more at the top of the hour. stick around. ♪ ♪ whether for big meetings or little getaways, there are always smiles ahead at holiday inn. brtry new flonase sensimists. allergy relief instead of allergy pills. it delivers a gentle mist experience to help block six key inflammatory substances. most allergy pills only block one. new flonase sensimist changes everything.

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. i'm ali. this hour london's metropolitan police saying they are responding to two terrorist incidents in central london. in the first incident just after 10:00 p.m. local time, 5:00 p.m. eastern time, a van traveling southbound on london bridge veered off the road and struck passing pedestrians. police were called to borough market, a busy area south of the london bridge with bars and restaurants where there are reports of at least one attacker stabbing people with a knife. armed police responded and shots where are fired at