A very brief note on yesterday’s London terrorist attack

A very brief note on yesterday’s London terrorist attack March 23, 2017

 

Regions map of the UK
A map of England, Scotland, and Wales, showing various regions. Kent is in the southeast, directly adjacent to Greater London, colored yellow (or gold or whatever). The West Midlands are colored red, to the northwest of Greater London.  (Public domain map from Manchesterprojects at English Wikipedia)

 

This brings it home a bit, makes it personal:  One of the four people killed by the assailant was a Utah man, Kurt Cochran, who was in London with his wife to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary and to visit her parents, who have been serving as missionaries in England for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865676257/Utah-man-killed-wife-injured-in-London-terror-attack.html

 

By the way, another of the victims was a mother by the name of Aysha Frade, who was picking her two kids up from school.  There may perhaps be some slight but bitter irony in the fact that her name, Aysha, is that of the Prophet Muhammad’s youngest wife.

 

Finally, Khalid Masood, the attacker, does indeed — as pretty much everybody expected — turn out to have been a Muslim, and was almost certainly influenced by Islamist ideology.  But he wasn’t an immigrant.  He wasn’t a refugee.  He wasn’t young.  He was in his early fifties.  And he wasn’t under serious current surveillance.  He was British-born, apparently in Kent, and had been living most recently in the West Midlands.

 

 


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