Terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge.

[RED-DOG]

Another one of these 'vehicle driven into pedestrians' type of atrocity.

It will no doubt result in the further tightening of security and yet more restrictions, but at the end of the day I can't see any realistic way of preventing this method of attack.

[DaveShoelace]

Sadly between this, Nice and Berlin, this sort of attack will be the weapon of choice for future attacks - as you say almost impossible to prempt and very easy to pull off. ISIS themselves actually have been imploring the readers of their magazine (yes, they have a magazine) to do just this.

I suppose it's a small mercy that the guy chose arguably the most heavily armed part of the UK rather than some random town centre.

[Doobs]

Therre is a lot of street furniture in front of big stations, stadiums etc to prevent this, but there is always a limit. 

Always puzzles me why these people fall for the murdering innocent people gets you eternal reward line.  Do they not go "How can that work?  Just run that by me again?"

[aaron1867]

It can be said with hindsight really, but it was a bit of a sitting target wasn't it? Must be a high numer of people on that bridge during any time during the day. You can see what is going to happen though across Europe, putting bollards and similar in open targets. However, what is more worrying is that apparently there wasn't any armed officers on the gate at where the officer has been stabbed.

Very sad.

[DaveShoelace]

It can be said with hindsight really, but it was a bit of a sitting target wasn't it? Must be a high numer of people on that bridge during any time during the day. You can see what is going to happen though across Europe, putting bollards and similar in open targets. However, what is more worrying is that apparently there wasn't any armed officers on the gate at where the officer has been stabbed.

Very sad.

Yeah everyone on the news and politicians, all of whom obviously know Westminster well, seem to be referring to it as a well known blindspot. Wont be any more obviously.

[Doobs]

It can be said with hindsight really, but it was a bit of a sitting target wasn't it? Must be a high numer of people on that bridge during any time during the day. You can see what is going to happen though across Europe, putting bollards and similar in open targets. However, what is more worrying is that apparently there wasn't any armed officers on the gate at where the officer has been stabbed.

Very sad.

Aftertiming terrorist attacks now.  London is pretty crowded, there are going to be loads of places where there are lots of people gather.  Anywhere near a station or tourist attraction for instance.

I thought the bloke was shot pretty quickly after the stabbing, though I guess there isn't an exact timeline yet, and even when it does there could be operational details missing.  Thin line between shooting potential terrorists and shooting Jean Charles De Menezes, and right now it is going to be a lot clearer what happened than it was when that bloke appeared at the gate.

[SuuPRlim]

I wish these people would just fuck off. Drove a car into railings, killed one person then stab a police officer. Nice one mate, i'm sure you'll be remembered for you're heroics and be straight into heaven.

Kinda fascinates me (somewhat morbidly) just how brainwashed a person can become, what collision of circumstances and mental pressure or torture needs to be applied to someone to make them believe so strongly that killing innocent people who have never harmed them, their religion or indeed probably anyone is what will get you to the promised land, to make people hate a person they dont know so much that are willing kill themselves in order to kill them. You would have thought that it takes a real freak of events to make this happen but it's (clearly) more common than would seem plausible. I guess it's a form of extreme depression and torture, almost makes you wonder if you should feel some empathy for them, the people behind these things are absolute low-end scum on the planet.

[Doobs]

It can be said with hindsight really, but it was a bit of a sitting target wasn't it? Must be a high numer of people on that bridge during any time during the day. You can see what is going to happen though across Europe, putting bollards and similar in open targets. However, what is more worrying is that apparently there wasn't any armed officers on the gate at where the officer has been stabbed.

Very sad.

Aftertiming terrorist attacks now.  London is pretty crowded, there are going to be loads of places where there are lots of people gather.  Anywhere near a station or tourist attraction for instance.

I thought the bloke was shot pretty quickly after the stabbing, though I guess there isn't an exact timeline yet, and even when it does there could be operational details missing.  Thin line between shooting potential terrorists and shooting Jean Charles De Menezes, and right now it is going to be a lot clearer what happened than it was when that bloke appeared at the gate.

Just looked at the live updates.  He ran to the gate, stabbed someone, ran another 15 yards and was shot, after a warning.  Sounds like he was shot in seconds after arriving at the gate, so think it is safe to say there were armed security officers of some kind very near the gate.

[The Camel]

I wish these people would just fuck off. Drove a car into railings, killed one person then stab a police officer. Nice one mate, i'm sure you'll be remembered for you're heroics and be straight into heaven.

Kinda fascinates me (somewhat morbidly) just how brainwashed a person can become, what collision of circumstances and mental pressure or torture needs to be applied to someone to make them believe so strongly that killing innocent people who have never harmed them, their religion or indeed probably anyone is what will get you to the promised land, to make people hate a person they dont know so much that are willing kill themselves in order to kill them. You would have thought that it takes a real freak of events to make this happen but it's (clearly) more common than would seem plausible. I guess it's a form of extreme depression and torture, almost makes you wonder if you should feel some empathy for them, the people behind these things are absolute low-end scum on the planet.

The people who do the brain washing are the utter scum.

As you say, the people who actually perform these crimes are worthy of pity. How is their life so shit that they can do these awful things?

[muckthenuts]

Surely you can't believe it's likely this was done with a sound mental state and full consciousness of what he was doing? The whole thing screams deranged psychopath from start to finish to probable motive.

[PokerBroker]

I can't fathom the end goal, do the extremists seriously believe that they can achieve some sort of global caliphate?

Perhaps it's about time that there was a change in foreign policy. 

The key to ending these attacks is engagement with the wider Islamic community.  But this can't be orchestrated through the spooks and state sponsored agencies, it's got to be bottom up. 

[TightEnd]

I can't fathom the end goal, do the extremists seriously believe that they can achieve some sort of global caliphate?

Perhaps it's about time that there was a change in foreign policy. 

The key to ending these attacks is engagement with the wider Islamic community.  But this can't be orchestrated through the spooks and state sponsored agencies, it's got to be bottom up. 

its difficult to do it from the bottom up because so much of the population thinks "islam =bad". one nutter here, or a cell there means the very large majority of law abiding muslim citiens in this country get tarred with the same brush by big segments of our population

[TightEnd]

Click to see full-size image.

[nirvana]

Have to say I'm more shocked by my level of desensitisation from events like this than the event itself

[SuuPRlim]

Click to see full-size image.

Fantastic