When: 02 February 2020
Where: Streatham, London
Who: Islamist extremist – Sudesh Amman
What: Bladed weapons attack against civilians
Deaths: 0
Injuries: 3
Type: Terrorist attack
Summary:
At 14:00 on Sunday, 02 February, a man armed with a large knife stabbed and wounded two people on Streatham High Road in south-west London. The attacker, 20-year-old Sudesh Amman, was shot by armed police very shortly after beginning his attack. Amman was wearing a rudimentary imitation explosives vest and reportedly used a knife he stole from a shop immediately prior to stabbing the victims. One of the victims received life threatening injuries, while the other suffered less severe injuries. A third person also received minor injuries after being struck by glass following the discharge of a police firearm. Amman had been released from prison in January 2020 following his conviction for possessing terrorist propaganda in 2018, after serving roughly half of his three year and four month sentence. Shortly after the attack, police declared it a terrorist incident related to Islamist extremism.
Assessment:
Authorities recognised Amman as a high-risk parolee, and police confirmed that he had been under active counter-terrorism surveillance since his release in January. The speedy response by armed officers indicates he was under close surveillance at the time of the attack. That Amman stole the weapons immediately prior to the attack highlights the difficulty in preventing last minute attacks using unsophisticated Methodology. The incident occurred less than three months after Usman Khan, also an Islamist extremist recently released from prison, employed the same methodology in an attack on London Bridge. While the decision to release Amman from prison early has been questioned, the incident demonstrated both the difficulty of preventing opportunistic attacks which use improvised weapons, and the ability of police to respond to such attacks and avert significant loss of life. It also highlighted the challenge of managing the risk posed by a growing cohort of released terrorist prisoners; a majority of counter-terrorism related convictions carry sentences of four years or less, with many of those not serving a complete sentences. Following the November 2019 London Bridge attack, the Home Secretary committed to more stringent sentencing and monitoring of terrorist convicts. While, the Counter-Terrorism (Sentencing and Release) Bill is still going through Parliament, the Bill and the accompanying review of inter-agency handling of the sentencing and probation of convicted terrorists will help address the issue.
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