London Bridge & Hague 2019 Incidents

November 29th is the anniversary of the Partition Plan of November 29, 1947, when The United Nations General Assembly approved a plan for the partition of Palestine.

2019 Incident

London Bridge

On this date in 2019, a "major incident" has taken place on the London Bridge. Reports indicate a number of people are believed to have been injured after a stabbing at London Bridge, police have said. One account says five have died ~ although this is totally unconfirmed.

The Met Police said they were called to a stabbing at a premises near the bridge just before 14:00 local time. They have declared this a "terrorist incident."

The force said it had killed a suspect, a man. The male killed was convicted terrorist Usman Khan, 28. Two citizens of London were killed.

London Ambulance Service has declared a "major incident". British Transport Police said London Bridge station was currently closed and no trains would be stopping there.

Police have advised people near the scene to follow directions from officers on the ground.

The prime minister tweeted he was being updated on the incident and wanted to thank police and all emergency services for their response.

Home Secretary Priti Patel also tweeted that she was "very concerned" about the incident.

The suspect had a "hoax" bomb jacket on his body.

Heroes credited were tour guide Thomas Gray, 24; Fishmongers' Hall chef Luckasz originally from Poland; convicted murderer James Ford out on day release; and other Small Car Big City tour guide Stevie Hurst.

Fishmongers' Hall was hosting a prisoner rehabilitation conference organised by the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University. Usman Khan, who had on an ankle tracking bracelet, was attending the conference and a speaker.
The Narwhal Tusk

Polish chef Luckasz at the Fishmongers' Hall took a narwhal tusk off the wall to fight the London Bridge attacker. He is quite visible in photographs and videos of the incident. Source.

The narwhal (Monodon monoceros), or narwhale, is a medium-sized toothed whale that possesses a large "tusk" from a protruding canine tooth. It lives year-round in the Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada, and Russia. It is one of two living species of whale in the family Monodontidae, along with the beluga whale. The narwhal males are distinguished by a long, straight, helical tusk, which is an elongated upper left canine. The narwhal was one of many species described by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758.

Its name is derived from the Old Norse word nár, meaning "corpse", in reference to the animal's greyish, mottled pigmentation, like that of a drowned sailor and its summer-time habit of lying still at or near the surface of the sea (called "logging").

In Inuit legend, the narwhal's tusk was created when a woman with a harpoon rope tied around her waist was dragged into the ocean after the harpoon had struck a large narwhal. She was transformed into a narwhal, and her hair, which she was wearing in a twisted knot, became the characteristic spiral narwhal tusk.

Some medieval Europeans believed narwhal tusks to be the horns from the legendary unicorn. As these horns were considered to have magic powers, such as neutralising poison and curing melancholia, Vikings and other northern traders were able to sell them for many times their weight in gold.

Pale Horses on the Bridge

Revelation 6:8

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

The Hague

Then in the afternoon of Friday, November 29, 2019, several people were injured during a stabbing attack at a busy shopping district in the Netherlands, Dutch police said. It was the traditional "Black Friday" shopping day. There appears to be no terrorist connection in this incident.

At least three people were injured in the attack in The Hague, near the town’s historic center, Dutch police said. The suspect is still at large, officials said.

In a statement, Hague police said they were seeking a man aged 45-50 and described him using a Dutch term often applied to people of North African descent.

The attack came hours after a terrorist armed with a knife killed two pedestrians at the London Bridge. That suspect was shot dead by London cops.

2017 Incident

I posted of the earlier 2017 incidents here and here.

March 22, 2017 was the first anniversary of the 2016 terrorist attack in Brussels. Three suicide bombers killed 32 people and injured 316 in the 2016 Brussels bombings at the airport and at the Maelbeek/Maalbeek metro station.

Previously on March 22, in 2004, Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas, two bodyguards, and nine civilian bystanders are killed in the Gaza Strip when hit by Israeli Air Force Hellfire missiles.

On 22-3-17 in the U.K., at about 2:40 (2:37?) pm local time, a terrorist incident occurred. A woman was killed on Westminster Bridge in central London in what police are treating as a terrorist incident. Reportedly a police officer has died too. Five people are reported to have died. At least 40 people have been injured, some severely



London attack summary of June 4, 2017:

- Six dead, 49 injured and taken to hospitals

- Incident declared as terrorism

- Three suspects shot dead

- Total dead is 6 (4 pedestrians, 1 police officer, and the perpetrator Khalid Masood)

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Photos from 2017.

"London Bridge is falling down" is the code for "The Queen has died."

London Bridge Attack

A white van mowed down pedestrians as it sped down London Bridge in the British capital on June 3, 2017, Saturday night, leaving bodies lying in the roadway, knocking people into the air, and forcing people to jump off the Bridge.

London attack latest, as of Sunday AM, June 4, 2017:

- Seven dead, 48 injured and taken to hospitals

- Incident declared as terrorism

- Three suspects shot dead

- Total dead is ten

"It looked to me that the van was aiming at the people," a witness tells CNN.

A witness reported the attackers screamed "This is for Allah."

Concurrently or shortly after the London Bridge incident on June 3, 2017, Saturday, three men entered a restaurant at Borough Market, just south of the Bridge, and stabbed four people inside. The patrons sheltered in the basement.

Both incidents have been declared terrorist incidents.

&&&&&&

On this night, June 3, 2017, the planet Jupiter is very apparent in the sky, only a few degrees from the Moon.

Sky & Telescope details what is happening with Jupiter tonight in these words:

Saturday, June 3
• Jupiter is the bright "star" with the Moon, as seen at right. They're only a couple degrees apart as viewed at dusk from North America. But Jupiter this evening is 1,860 times farther away.
• Lower left of them is Spica. Much closer to them in the opposite direction is fainter Gamma (γ) Virginis, a close double star for telescopes (separation 2.6 arcseconds this year).
• And, a double shadow-transit occurs on Jupiter tonight. From 10:22 p.m. to 12:22 a.m. EDT, both Io and larger Ganymede are casting their tiny black shadows onto Jupiter's face.
• And then, Jupiter's Great Red Spot transits the planet's central meridian around 12:55 a.m. EDT (9:55 p.m. PDT). Quite a telescopic night for this little group of objects.

Another Jupiter directly clashed with London Bridge. On June 13, 1984, as the HMS Jupiter was leaving the Pool of London after a visit to the capital, she collided with London Bridge causing significant damage to both ship and bridge. The ship's Captain, Commander Colin Hamilton, was later court martialed at Portsmouth on December 4, 1984.

London Bridge is usually rather calm. On February 28, 1992, a bomb exploded at London Bridge station injuring 29 people.

On June 3, 1982, the Israeli Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Shlomo Argov, was shot outside the Dorchester Hotel by three gunmen from the Abu Nidal group. The ambassador survived a three-month coma, but was paralysed and required constant medical attention until his death in 2003 as a result of the wounds. See other "Terrorist Incidents in London" here.

The first bridge near this site was built in about AD 50, probably by the Romans. This version of the London Bridge was begun in 1971, and first opened on March 17 (Saint Patrick's Day), 1973, a little over 44 years ago.

The lyrics to a children's song, perhaps as old as the Late Middle Ages (circa A.D. 1301–1500), has made the London Bridge famous around the World.

London Bridge is falling down,

Falling down, falling down.

London Bridge is falling down,

My fair lady.

At top, an engraving by Claes Visscher showing Old London Bridge in 1616, with what is now Southwark Cathedral in the foreground. The spiked heads of executed criminals can be seen above the Southwark gatehouse.

London Bridge Incident: The Fortean View

A "major incident" has been reported at London Bridge with reports suggesting that a man was wielding an axe in the train station. (This follows closely in time, but not space, the bridge incident yesterday in Washington State.)

IBTimes UK reporter Ewan Palmer, who was at the scene, said armed police and ambulance teams were at the scene, and that no one was being let in or out of the station.

He said an officer described it as a "major incident" but could not specify what had happened.

But Twitter feeds give more details:

"London Bridge station evacuated amid reports of man with axe, meanwhile M6 shut junc 2-4 bcs of suspicious vehicle. Jittery times."

"A guy with an axe was on my train"

The fact this may be a copycat fiction seems real. No "axe man" was found. No arrests were made. And it seems to be a false alarm at best, and a hoax at worst.

Drawing at top, London Bridge, 1616, Claes Van Visscher.

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Bob Rickard, the editor of Fortean Times, sends along this:

Ohhh Loren ... you have opened another bag of tricks with this one!
London Bridge is also a pretty ancient children's game-song.
The Wikipedia for London Bridge has much interesting info ... but I think your eyes will be drawn to the theory (lower down the page) put forward by the folklorist Alice Gomme and "perpetuated by the usually sceptical Iona and Peter Opie" that the words referred to "child sacrifice," in particular, live burial in the foundations.
Note also that one of the proposed identities of the Fair Lady immortalised in the song rhyme is "A member of the Leigh family of Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, who have a family tradition that a human sacrifice lies under the building."
Note too, that the song and game's actions and verses are believed by some to be related to another children's rhyme-game called Oranges and Lemons and what should we find but a gruesome last verse...
"Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.
Chop chop chop chop
The last man's dead!"
As far as I know, Woolwich, while south of the Thames, has never been regarded as part of Cockney land (as celebrated by the song). But then, in multicultural London we are all Cockneys now!
* muffled laughter echoes along Thames bank *
~ bR            =====================

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London is jumpy due to a violent attack that took place earlier this week.

Two suspected killers, British men of Nigerian descent, aged 22 and 28, are under guard in hospitals after being shot and arrested by police following the murder of 25-year-old Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby on Wednesday, May 22, 2013, in broad daylight.

One of the assailants, filmed justifying the killing as he stood near the body holding a knife and meat cleaver in bloodied hands, was named by acquaintances as 28-year-old Londoner Michael Adebolajo, a British-born convert to Islam.