Police make new arrests in London soldier killing

LONDON: British police made two further arrests Thursday and raided houses across London following the brutal murder of a serving soldier who survived a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister David Cameron appealed for calm after 25-year-old Lee Rigby was butchered outside a London army barracks on Wednesday, while an extra 1,200 officers were deployed on the capital's streets in a bid to reassure the public.

The intelligence agencies meanwhile came under scrutiny after it emerged that the two murder suspects, who were injured in police gunfire at the scene, had been known to the security services.

Both men, aged 28 and 22, are believed to be Britons of Nigerian origin.
One of them had frequented meetings by the now-banned group Al-Muhajiroun, its UK leader Anjem Choudary told AFP.

The two chief suspects are under arrest in separate hospitals. They are both stable and their injuries are not life threatening, police said.

In a brazen mid-afternoon attack in Woolwich, southeast London, the pair apparently hacked Rigby with knives and a meat cleaver.

The victim, who has a two-year-old son Jake, was a machine gunner who served with NATO-led forces in Afghanistan in 2009, the defence ministry said.

Police searched five properties in London and one in a village in eastern England, and announced the arrests of a man and a woman, both aged 29, for conspiracy to murder.

"This is a large, complex and fast-moving investigation which continues to develop," a spokesman said.

Detectives are sifting through witness statements, social media and security camera footage, while forensic experts have been combing the scene in Woolwich for evidence.

Media reports citing witnesses said the men first ran over their victim in a car before finishing him off with the knives.

A government source said "we will be looking into the possibility that they were known" to the security services.

British media are naming the suspects as 28-year-old Michael Adebolajo and 22-year-old Michael Adebowale, both from London.