London Attack Police Investigation; Police Raid More Homes In East London; U.K. P.M. Calls For Tougher Internet Rules
ROBYN CURNOW, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome back to our continuing coverage of the attack in London. I'm Robyn Curnow. At this hour, we are waiting to hear the names of three men who are responsible for Saturday's terror outraged in London. The Prime Minister says those responsible have been identified. Theresa May says the names will be released when the investigation permits. London Mayor Sadiq Khan called the attackers perverse and poisonous and he says he's furious the terrorist are trying or using his faith to justify what they did. Meanwhile, police are restoring barriers on some bridges in London to make them safer for pedestrians. The Prime Minister is talking more about the victims and the different countries they came from.</s>THERESA MAY, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: The police are working hard to establish the identity of all of those who were tragically killed or injured in the event on Saturday night. But it is now clear that sadly victims came from a numbers of nationalities. This was an attack on London and the United Kingdom, but it was also an attack on the free world.</s>CURNOW: Theresa May there. Well, let's go straight to New Scotland Yard, the London police headquarters. Samuel Burke was there. You back now, Samuel. Just give us some sense of this investigation. Where are we at the moment? What do we know?</s>SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sorry about that, Robin. It's starting to rain here at Scotland Yard. We do know that raids were carried out this morning and that 11 people had been detained. And we know that the police know the identity of these three attackers. But the real reason it's so important that we learn the name of those three attackers and that the public does so that we can get a better sense of if they were on the radar of the U.K. authority. Melissa Bell, our correspondent, has done some reporting and that she spoke to somebody who lives near what is believed to be one of the attackers. Woman says she recognized him from the footage that we have seen. And this woman says that she flagged him up to the authorities. Now, we also know that some people said in the Muslim community up in Manchester that they have flagged up the terrorist attacker behind the Ariana Grande concert and that maybe that had bond to the crafts. We heard that from U.K. media today that it looks like maybe that phone call didn't go to the right department. And just a short time ago, we had the commander of the police out here with members of the Muslim community and they said point-blank, Muslims need to do more, but I said, how can you reconcile the possibility that Muslims up in Manchester were flagging up some and abated (ph) to the authorities and it may have fallen through the cracks? And this is what the police commander told me.</s>MAK CHISHTY, POLICE COMMANDER FOR ENGAGEMENT: Unlike a single person, a lone wolf kind of attack, they may keep everything to themselves. When you got three people in concert necessarily there must have been some discussion around that and some people even the closest point to them must do something. And we're saying that had a duty, the Muslim community say, they had that duty to report it.</s>BURKE: So, Robyn, essentially what he is saying there it's not enough for Muslims to just flag up the suspicions that they may have about their fellow community members. That commander who is Muslim himself currently fasting on Ramadan. He said that people need to also flag up the attack and he's saying that if three people knew about it then four people must have known about it, that's his assumption, and that they should have flagged it up. I spoke to members of the Muslim community, those leaders who are there pictured next to him, afterward and they say that they are pushing the police given the reports that they heard that members of the Muslim community flagged up some (inaudible) and they want to know that the police if they're receiving these calls are caring through on the information, Robyn.</s>CURNOW: Samuel Burke, today, outside a west and rainy in Scotland Yard. Thanks so much. Now, Prime Minister Theresa May called terror rampage an attack on the free will, as we heard a little bit earlier, let's get straight to Downing Street now. Nic Robertson is there for us. And what is also so critical is the timing of this attack in election this week.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: And it pushed Theresa May in a very, very difficult position as well as the other political leaders here. They want to be sensitive to people's concerns about this attack. But at the same time the election is too close to cancel, and as they have -- as most the politicians in Britain have said is the attack is an attack on the democracy and the election is the sort of fundamental points of that democracy. So, the election and the campaigning will go ahead. In fact, Theresa May has now sort of switched really from focusing on the terrorism investigation that the police and intelligence services are handling. And she is going comeback to political campaigning today. That said, it does in a way put Theresa May open for criticism on the -- her leadership at the British Home Office. She oversaw reduction in the number of police officers, that does been criticism as well, and there aren't enough armed police officers. So, has just been prime minister for 10 months and the Home Secretary responsible for police prior to that and given that there's now been three terror attacks in the space of three months. There is political criticism of the decisions that she has made over the past few years that could have contributed to this. This is certainly something that the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, has fixed on. He said that she should actually resign for the accounts that she's made to the police force under her leadership. And his Labor Party is saying that they will increase the police force by 10,000 officers but they not been played how they'll fund that however, Robyn.</s>CURNOW: And so that's the criticism of her job before she became prime minister which might have an impacts on response now, but what does this mean for voters when they go to vote? Do you think this attacking in many ways buzz him? Did you actually put -- take the box or do you think it gain, there is still that exhaustion that we spoke about last week?</s>ROBERTSON: There are lots of things that play here. You know, before the terror attack in Manchester and London, Theresa May was campaigning on a very personality driven focus that she is the only one that can give the country stable and secure leadership and strong leadership going into the Brexit negotiation that begin less than two weeks after this election, that the leader of the Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, isn't strong enough, isn't the right figure. That resonates to a degree with the voters across the country. That there are other issues that resonate as well the state of the British Health Service, State of the Police is another one, the State of Education in the country as another one. So, there's a lot of other things out there other than the terrorism issue. But rightly, people are going to be have concerns when they go to vote, that this concerns about safety and security either the coastal politicians there are encouraging the people to go out and vote that there will be and are additional police officers on the streets on police officer in London, and a higher visible presence in other places around the country. But in such circumstances it wouldn't be unexpected if there was a slightly lower turnouts and, obviously, depending on the level of turnout and who it is a younger, older that come out that can also tip the scales of election. So, will this cast a shadow over the election? Undoubtedly. Will it completely reshape it? Probably not. But will it impacted in some way? How much? I think we have to say yes it will. But how much -- will it have real consequence? It's just not clear at the moment, Robyn.</s>CURNOW: Nic Robertson, currently reporting at this comprehensive in the last 48 hours or so. Thanks so much coming to us from 10 Downing Street. Well, let's focus on the ongoing fast-moving investigation into the event of Saturday night. We know that 11 individuals are currently in police custody. Sajjan Gohel is the International Security Director for the think tank Asia-Pacific Foundation. He joins us now from London. We've heard the prime minister and other people say enough is enough, but what more needs to be done? What needs to change?</s>SAJJAN GOHEL, INTL. SECURITY DIRECTOR, ASIA PACIFIC FOUNDATION: Well, Robyn, one of the problems I'm afraid, is the fact that ISIS through its -- what they call just terror tactics, are able to carry out attacks spontaneously, sporadically, they are able to do it without the plot has been -- is stopped. And this is the challenge now is that, how does one try and preempt this type of terrorism? The other aspect that is connected to this is the fact that they are using encrypted messaging programs to communicate to plot and plan attacks, so ISIS handlers, the intelligence operators as known as the EMINI (ph), for example, are able to use these programs to communicate with people in the UK and give them guidance and that is partly what the prime minister is talking about, is that that needs to be looked at. And that's going to be a very difficult discussion coming up in the aftermath of the elections because that means looking at potentially preventing people from accessing these type of social media tools.</s>CURNOW: And it will be a conversation about free speech and also backdoors in terms of what kind of access governments gets too many of these media company, that itself is a tough question, what else needs to be done?</s>GOHEL: Well, one thing is the fact that the ideology of ISIS needs to be clearly identified and exposed, very often, they are allowed to use the pulpit of social media to get that propaganda out and it's never checked. It is never scrutinized. People don't look at the fine print about this difficult, the fact that they are killing Muslims in Iraq and Syria, many of them women and children. They portray themselves as representative of a faith but actually they do not discriminate in terms of who they kill a lot of those people in the U.K. that may think that somehow they represent something genuine. They are actually misguided into thinking that with the fact that ISIS has been responsible for creating massive graves of people in Iraq and Syria. They're finding them those massacres. For example, in Mosul City, ideology needs to be looked at that there is something very warped and twisted about this death cult, and it is to come out clear needs to be illustrate to the fact that they are killing people in Iraq and Syria, as well as in the west.</s>CURNOW: And this also talks about there in England you -- I mean there have been literally three attacks that are three months in the U.K. Is it just bad luck that these three have got through because just in the last few weeks he heard security chief say they were dealing with up to 500 potential terror plots. Up until now the U.K. had been relatively unscathed kind of terror hitting Paris and Brussels, for example.</s>GOHEL: Well, I would argue that the British security services, the police authorities are some of the best in the world. They have disrupted many plots. Since the Westminster attack a few months ago, five plots have been disrupted. It's kind of old adage (ph), I guess that they have to be lucky all the time. The terrorist need to be a lucky just that one since it is part of the problem that ISIS had, two years ago, focus on France and the bed met many of the attacks in Europe than last year. The focus moved to Belgium and Germany., and now the U.K. is unfortunately having to deal with this. It's also connected to the fact that the more territory ISIS loses in Iraq and Syria. They will want to try and show that they retain power and control and as they slowly get dismantled, they will try and carry out as many attacks as possible to take down as many people as possible. And the other thing that is important is the timing of this technologist before the general elections but during holy month of Ramadan. Last year they carried out some eight attacks across the world in the Islamic world and in the West. And it is no coincidence that the trying to do it during this time for their own nefarious purposes.</s>CURNOW: Yes. Let's not forget many families in Iraq and Afghanistan also lost loved one and isn't loved ones last week. This is not just isolated U.K. this week, it is been a bloody Ramadan so far already. So with that in mind what more does the U.K., this is specifically talked about the U.K. here, all we going to see more armed policemen on the street. Is there going to be a change in lifestyle despite the fact that the British say keep calm and carry on where to find our life is not to change. Do you think that they can be lawfully lasting impact in terms of how the states tried to protect these people?</s>GOHEL: Our lives are going to change. It's OK for the politicians to give sound bites about how this one impact on us. But it is impacting on us. The fact that there are more armed police for a country that has never really had police officers carrying weapons, they are in now in greater numbers. That is a sign of the reality, the fact also with the police themselves having targets for terrorism. So things will continue to alter as we move forward that needs to be also more front-line police officers to engage with the communities because if communities are effectively the best source of intelligence there has to be greater interaction between the police and the community, which is already very good level. Far better than countries like France and in Belgium, but they need to be more police officers. And there's already been some controversy over the fact the police numbers have been reduced over the last few years is also going to have to be greater cooperation with other countries. We keep talking about that some 16 years after 9/11, but that is something that still is required in. I think, Robyn, one thing that is reminds me a lot of the problems that exist now is that these type of attacks are becoming the new normal. There is almost virtually nothing one can do to stop somebody getting into a car turning into a lethal weapon. It is something that we can try and contain. So for example when the British police landed near London Bridge, they were able to activate themselves within eight minutes that was very important. So they can stop the attack, but they control them from proliferating.</s>CURNOW: And of course people around them incredibly vigilant and often act of bravery, a help that contain the situation even more. Sajjan Gohel always great to have you on the show, thanks so much for joining us.</s>GOHEL: My pleasure.</s>CURNOW: Well Donald Trump has strongly condemned Saturday's terror attack and he is also renewed his feed with the London Mayor. We will have the latest from the White House after this.