A 13-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a double stabbing at a London school at Tuesday lunchtime. Reports say the attacker was heard calling out words like “Allahu Akbar”—or similar—during the incident.
London’s Metropolitan Police said the attack had not been declared a terrorist incident, but that counter terrorism officials were leading the investigation due to the “surrounding circumstances.” The force later confirmed that the injuries suffered by the two victims were “serious” but “not life-threatening.”
Benjamin Jones of the Free Speech Union noted that by Wednesday afternoon, this story had “already basically vanished from the BBC home page” and was instead “30+ stories down, under ‘Also in the news.’”
[This] would have been a major news story for weeks once.
Commenting in particular on reports the attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar” while stabbing his young victims, radio presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer asked: “How can anyone seriously still pretend we don’t have an Islamist extremism problem?”
Parents of children at Kingsbury High School, Brent, told reporters that the suspect may have been a suspended former pupil. One said: “My son said he was faking that he was [from the school] by wearing a jumper or a jacket from the school.”
The Telegraph also claims that the school is understood to have had security staff on its main gate, and that the suspect got away by climbing over a wall.
Police are now examining the suspect’s devices and going through “dozens” of witness accounts.
One boy at the school has been described as a “hero” after he pulled a fire alarm to get help, potentially saving others from being injured—if not, indeed, killed.
