London Bridge attack

The terrorist who was shot dead at the iconic London Bridge on Friday has been identified as 28-year-old Usman Khan from Staffordshire. A British citizen, he was born in London and is of Pakistani origin. He had stabbed two people to death and injured another three before he was shot dead by a special armed force. Terrorism cannot be justified. Taking human life cannot be justified. Usman left school in the United Kingdom without any qualifications. He returned to Pakistan with his mother, where he spent a major part of his teen years.

According to a British newspaper, at one time Usman preached terrorism on the internet and soon gained a significant following. In January 2012, he was convicted of terrorism offences. He was among nine men charged with conspiracy to carry out terror attacks in London and other cities of Britain in the run-up to Christmas in 2010. A list seized from the home of one of the defendants had former London mayor Boris Johnson, the American Embassy and the London Stock Exchange mentioned as targets. He was sentenced to detention for public protection with a minimum custodial term of eight years — a sentence designed by UK authorities to protect the public from serious offenders whose crimes do not merit a life sentence. He was released from prison in December 2018.

The police said Usman had attended an event on Friday where the attack had begun. The attack raises an important question. How was a convict, who had spent jail time and whose proclivities for terrorism had been well established, left to roam free without surveillance? A terrorist is a terrorist. His origin is of no account. There is no single character in a society or culture. Before 2000, in the UK, terrorism-related incidents were attributed to the Irish Republican Army. Since 2001, several terror attacks have been carried out in the UK by people described as Islamic terrorists. This line from Wordsworth’s poem named London Bridge or Composed upon Westminster Bridge: All bright and glittering in the smokeless air, now stands sullied.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2019.

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