Amer Ghazzal / Barcroft Media / Barcroft Media via Getty Images(LONDON) — The London Bridge partially reopened to traffic on Monday as the city worked to recover from a terrorist attack over the weekend that killed seven people and injured dozens more, according to authorities.
The bridge had been closed since Saturday when three armed men — wearing fake suicide vests — drove a van into a crowd of pedestrians on the bridge and attacked others with knives in nearby Borough Market, police said. The terror group ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday.
More than 30 victims remained hospitalized as of Sunday, with 21 of them in critical condition, police said. Some of those injured are foreign nationals, according to authorities. Forty-eight people were injured in total.
The French embassy in London announced, “We are very sad to report the death of one French citizen in the London attack,” adding that seven more “compatriots” were in the hospital, four of whom were in serious condition, with one additional person missing.
The nearby London Bridge rail station also reopened after police cordons around it “were lifted earlier than expected,” according to transportation officials, but police said the public should expect to see extra officers on duty during Monday’s commute.
Police shot and killed the three attackers in Borough Market, where the seven victims were stabbed, after firing 50 rounds of gunfire, police said.
Authorities have identified the three suspects in the attack, but have opted to keep their names private, for now, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said in an interview with BBC Radio on Monday.
Dick declined to say whether their names had been placed on the country’s terrorist watch list, but she stated again that authorities had foiled five terror plots in recent weeks.
The commissioner called the police response to the attack “extraordinary” after officers reportedly arrived on scene and shot the three attackers to death within eight minutes of receiving an emergency call, but said that police need to “step up” their response in the wake of multiple terror attacks.
Dick went on to describe what she called the “utterly heroic” actions of an off-duty officer who was having a drink with friends at Borough Market and “dived in” to help “without hesitation” and was severely injured as a result. She said members of the public performed first aid on the officer before he was taken to the hospital where he remains in serious condition.
Prime Minister Theresa May held an emergency meeting Monday morning to organize the government’s response to the crisis. May strongly condemned the attack in remarks on Sunday, saying “enough is enough” and warned about threat of copycat attacks, saying “terrorism breeds terrorism.”
Twelve people have been arrested in connection with the attack, police said. Authorities are now trying to “piece together exactly what occurred” and learn more about the attackers, Metropolitan Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said Sunday. Of the 12, seven were women, police said, adding that 11 of the arrests happened at a single address.
Early Monday, the Metropolitan Police announced an operation near Barking, the site of the previous raids, where they searched the two addresses and detained a number of people for questioning.
“Work is ongoing to understand more about them, their connections and whether they were assisted or supported by anyone else,” Rowley said. “[W]e will release the identities of the three men directly responsible for the attacks yesterday, Saturday, 3 June, as soon as operationally possible.”
Saturday’s deadly attack marked Britain’s third such incident since March.
It comes in the wake of a suicide bombing outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester on May 22 that killed 22. A separate vehicle ramming attack in March on Westminster Bridge left four dead including the suspect.
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