A stabbing at a Tube station in east London – which left a man seriously injured – is being treated as a “terrorist incident”, the Met Police have said.
Police were called to reports of people being attacked at Leytonstone around 7pm on Saturday, with the knifeman reportedly shouting “this is for Syria”.
One man suffered serious knife injuries – which aren’t thought to be life threatening – whilst two others received minor injuries. The attacker was arrested after being Tasered by police, after several attempts to apprehend him.
Counter-terrorism detectives at the Metropolitan Police are now investigating the case and Downing Street are monitoring the situation closely.
A witness told the BBC that they saw the man holding a knife about 3 inches long standing over a man lying on the floor and people running out of the Central Line station.
Commander Richard Walton, who leads the Met’s Counter-Terrorism Command told the BBC:
We are treating this as a terrorist incident. I would urge the public to remain calm, but alert and vigilant. The threat from terrorism remains at severe, which means that a terrorist attack is highly likely. I would appeal to anyone who was in the vicinity of Leytonstone underground station earlier this evening at around 7pm who saw anything suspicious to call the anti-terror hotline on 0800 789 321.
Another witness, Michael Garcia, 24, a financial analyst from Leytonstone told the BBC how he saw people running outside.
He said:
I realised it wasn’t a fight but something more sinister. (He saw) a guy, an adult, lying on the floor with a guy standing next to him brandishing a knife of about three inches… maybe a hobby knife. It had a thin blade, but looked fairly long. He was screaming ‘go on, then, run’ to everyone else. He was pacing back and forth next to the guy on the floor. He came up to the barriers.”
The Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn wrote on Twitter following the stabbing.
Leytonstone station remains cordoned off and closed with no trains running through it.
