Streatham stabbing

On 02 February 2020, Sudesh Mamoor Faraz Amman, a 20-year-old man, carried out a knife attack on Streatham High Road in south London. He stole a knife from a shop and stabbed two members of the public at random before being shot dead by undercover counter-terrorism officers who had been following him on foot. According to Wikipedia, a third person was injured by broken glass during the police response. Both stabbing victims survived. The entire incident lasted just over 60 seconds.

Amman wore silver canisters strapped to his chest, a fake suicide vest later confirmed by explosives experts to be a hoax. He had been convicted in 2018 of disseminating terrorist material and possessing information useful to a terrorist, and had been released from Belmarsh prison roughly ten days before the attack after serving part of a 40-month sentence. He was under active armed surveillance at the time. Counter Terrorism Policing said officers monitoring him because of concerns about his extremist mindset gave chase within seconds and shot him as he turned towards them with the knife. A 2021 inquest found Amman was lawfully killed.

The attack was inspired by Islamic State ideology and reflected jihadist extremism rather than any state-directed campaign. Coming weeks after a similar attack by a recently released offender, it prompted emergency legislation: the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill was introduced and debated in Parliament on 12 February 2020 and received Royal Assent on 26 February 2020, ending automatic early release for certain terrorism prisoners.

This was an Islamist, Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack by a lone individual, domestic in nature and not connected to Russian or other state-sponsored hybrid warfare. The case centres on a known, recently released offender who remained committed to violence despite imprisonment and active surveillance. Its significance lies less in the attack itself, which armed officers contained within roughly a minute, than in its policy consequences: it accelerated emergency changes to UK terrorism sentencing and release rules. A later inquest jury concluded the attack might have been prevented had authorities recalled Amman to prison.