The three men who carried out attacks on London Bridge on June 3 had tried to hire a 7.5-tonne lorry to kill more people, the police said on Saturday. Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism commander Dean Haydon said that mastermind Khuram Butt had tried to hire the lorry on the morning of the attack. “When he did not provide payment details, the rental did not go ahead,” he said, according to The Guardian.
Butt was then forced to hire a Renault van from a firm in Harold Hill in east London, reported BBC. The police believe that the trio wanted to carry out an attack similar in scale to that of the Nice attack in August 2015 that had killed 84 people, reported The Guardian. “The effects could have been even worse,” said Haydon, according to the daily.
The men drove the van into a crowd on the bridge before stabbing people in the nearby Borough Market. The police further said that the attackers had tied pink ceramic knives to their wrists and had petrol bombs in the van, reported BBC. Eight people were killed and 48 were injured. Apart from Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba were named as the attackers. All there were shot dead.
Earlier in the day, the police arrested two more people on the suspicion of terror links. While a 27-year-old man was detained at a house in Ilford, another 28-year-old man was picked up from a house in Barking. With these two, the police have so far arrested seven people in connection with the attack.
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