stabbed some other men, i'm not sure about this or whatever happened. a man tried to pull me off the scene andi man tried to pull me off the scene and i rant towards the scene because i noticed this man with an exposed gold on his chest. —— i ran. they we re gold on his chest. —— i ran. they were running. —— belt. the police officer was trying to put himself between him and the crowd. at that point i rant towards them. more police came over. —— iran's. —— iran. more police came over. —— iran's. —— i ran. within two more police came over. —— iran's. —— iran. within two or more police came over. —— iran's. —— i ran. within two or three seconds they shot the men. that is what i honestly saw. any questions? the man knew took the picture of, these canisters on his body, what did you think they were? the first time i thought it wasn't anything real. it didn't look real. i'm not the person who could honestly say if it was real or not because i have no experience in regard. but it looked like a toy to me. that's why i wasn't too scared. so you weren't scared? of wasn't too scared. so you weren't scared ? of not wasn't too scared. so you weren't scared? of not of people would have been if they had seen that? —— a lot of. yes. you had been in this part of. yes. you had been in this part of london, you were watching the football? yes, i'm a fan ofjuventus and sincel football? yes, i'm a fan ofjuventus and since i am a photographer i was there, i saw this situation coming up. iwas there, i saw this situation coming up. i was just, there, i saw this situation coming up. iwasjust, you know, looking for this situation to happen. you must have been pretty alarmed by what you saw and what was going on around you ? what you saw and what was going on around you? i have been in situations like this before. i don't think you realise how scary it can possibly be until you put yourself into it because even a policeman could have shot me because it was me, the police and these three men. i was lucky definitely. gabriele sciotto, thank you very much indeed for being with us. earlier on my colleague martine croxall spoke to a journalist, redmond shannon, for what he saw i had spoken to a couple of people, the first was a young woman who was on the bridge at the time of the attack. he didn't see how people we re the attack. he didn't see how people were injured but she did see at least two injured people and she saw one of those people being attended to, given cpr. obviously she wanted to, given cpr. obviously she wanted to get away as quickly as possible, people told them to get away as quickly as possible, and she was driven away by somebody who had a car on the bridge and i saw her at the northern end of london bridge near monument to station. the second person i spoke to was a young man out with friends —— chook station. clearly really disturbed by what he saw. he said he saw a knife, he saw something happened which he said he just couldn't articulate, it sounded like it was very violent, it sounded like it was very violent, it sounded like he was extremely traumatised and he said if he had been crossing that bridge to minutes later he believes it would have been him. he was too upset to say any more, he wouldn't give me his name but him and his friends were extremely upset and his friends were extremely upset and they walked away around three court of of an hour after what happened. tell us where you are now and what you can see? the police cordon has been extended further north above monument chook station and the police are basically trying to divert a lot of people looking for taxis, looking to get home after a night out, trying to keep the area secure. it has calmed down a lot. and ambulance went by around ten minutes ago into the scene but for the most part over the last three quarters of an hour it has been a lot quieter but obviously there are a lot of emergency response people on the scene. apparently a lot of first responders have been calling in offering to come into work and they've been deluged with offers and tha nkfully they've been deluged with offers and thankfully they have enough. as you really implied with eyewitnesses, they can't quite believe what they've seen sometimes? that's it. the young man who spoke to me said it is the worst thing he has ever seen. that was what he told me. so bad he couldn't tell me the level of violence. you could see it in his eyes. he was extremely upset. when he wanted to stop talking i let him go because she had obviously seen something quite terrible. redmond shannon talking to my colleague martine croxall a little earlier. let me show you these pictures taken earlier of people with their hands up, told by police, as they walked away from the areas, the police obviously trying to make sure there weren't any more terror suspects at large. we know a number of hospitals in this area are still on lockdown for their safety, it's being said, of the patients and the staff in those hospitals. 20 patients we are now hearing had been taken to hospital, multiple casualties from these two incidents that seem linked, this white van being driven across london bridge at high speed and 50 mph swerving into pedestrians, then the occupants of the van, perhaps between two and four occupants of the van, running out of the van and it appears carrying out knife attacks. 20 people we hearing taken to hospital. tom symonds is our home affairs correpsondent, he's on southwark street near borough market. bring us up to date on what you know, on the picture of what has happened here? it's important to understand the geography here, people who don't know london won't know this area, london bridge runs across the city to a busy area of london, i come here a lot to report from the court. london bridge station is very busy, one of the busiest in the country, somewhere where people will have been heading to go home after the pub. round the corner from the to go home after the pub. round the cornerfrom the bridge is borough market, an area where there are cafes, in the daytime food stalls where people go for lunch. we understand from eyewitnesses, clearly we have to have a health warning there, eyewitnesses sometimes think they have seen something and describe things in various ways that isn't entirely accurate but what eyewitnesses seem to be centring on is a white van crashing into pedestrians at the southern end of the bridge outside a pub on the southern end of the bridge. two or three or maybe even four men getting out of the van, armed with knives, attacking people on the pavement near where the collision happened, then running down around the corner into the borough market area. in that area are borough market area. in that area a re lots of borough market area. in that area are lots of pubs and cafes, i spoke to an eyewitness who runs security for a number of those establishments and he said he was getting reports by phone of people being stabbed in the cafe. that means that this took a bit of time to develop. people were stabbed and then there were phone calls made, he went out and saw attacks happening in front of his eyes. he was deeply shaken up, he saw a woman in her early 20s stabbed severely and go to the ground very badly injured. he described one of the attackers as having what looked like canisters taped to his body, we've seen a picture from a photographer that seems to suggest that was a correct description, we don't know what the canisters are. then there is some sort of police intervention, shots are fired, we're pretty sure about that, but police haven't said anything about the shooting and i think that's important. we need to understand why that is. to work out exactly what shots were fired before putting out a brief factual statement of what happened, the outcome was how many attackers there were, and the other key piece of information we are waiting for is even a rough idea of the number of people who have been killed in this incident, the number of injuries, as you've discussed, ben, hospitals, the major trauma units in this part of london very well used to dealing with the sort of thing, they will be under theirfull with the sort of thing, they will be under their full procedures for dealing with an emergency like this. an awful lot going on, the police still monitoring the scene. a police helicopter overhead. that's been here most of the evening, luckily searching around the same area, we often look for a helicopter looking for what's going on, doesn't look like this is continuing. some false alarms around of incidents that aren't linked to this thatjust happen to be happening on a busy saturday night in london. also finally some controlled explosions. we think, police have confirmed this, some bangs in the direction of the bridge, likely to be the police dealing with bags that have been dropped during this incident as it develops and to ensure there is nothing nasty in any of those items on the floor. we are hearing that cobra, the government emergency committee, will meet later today. the terror threat level was raised after the manchester attacks to critical but then was brought down again to severe, wasn't it? cobra meets to assess the security situation. the government has independent advisers looking at what the police and security services say and they give an independent view as to what the government should do about security. it's the government decision in the end, but generally governments accept the advice of their security analysts. after the manchester attack, the analysts said you need to go to critical, the highest level in the five level system introduced in 2006, only the third time the level has been reached. the critical level meant that an attack may be imminent. after police got control of their understanding of the manchester bombing, they then dropped the level to severe, which still means there isa to severe, which still means there is a severe threat of an attack, that's where we are now. if police are concerned this attack may be linked to future attacks, there may be another imminent attack, it's likely we will go back to critical but it will be a decision from the government based on security analyst advice, who look at all the information that comes in. stay with us, iwant information that comes in. stay with us, i want to read the viewers a statement from the mayor of london, sadiq khan, the metropolitan police, says sadiq khan, responding to the horrific terrorist attack at london bridge and borough market, my thoughts are with everyone affected, i'd like to thank the brave men and women of our emergency services who were first on the scene and will be working through the night. sadiq khan, mayor of london, saying i'm in close contact with the met commissioner and senior officers, being updated on all developments, i will be attending the cobra meeting later on this morning. london bridge station is closed, we are asking people to avoid the area. the situation still unfolding. i would ask all londoners and visitors to oui’ ask all londoners and visitors to our city to remain calm and vigilant, please report anything suspicious to the police. we don't yet know the full details but sadiq khan says this was a deliberate and cowardly attack on innocent londoners and visitors to our city enjoying their saturday night. i condemn it in the strongest possible terms. there's nojustification whatever for such barbaric acts. that statement just in from the mayor of london, sadiq khan. so, i mean, tom, obviously we've had the westminster attack, we've had the manchester attack and now this. all different in many ways? i think the first and the third are similar in one obvious respect. a car attack followed by a knife attack. now, in this case we have a conspiracy, we have several men who appear on the eyewitness accounts we have so far to have planned this and carried it out together but the first of that, khalid masood, was on his own, a lone wolf and difficult for the police to detect. the middle attack of the three, the bombing in magister, is entirely different. there's a lot of evidence that salman abedi went abroad to libya, he came back to manchester shortly before the bombing, he rented various flats, there is some evidence that it's possible he constructive his device in some of those flats. so that does look different. the first and the third look quite similar. it's important to understand, i remember the bombings in 2005, the 7/7 bombings, how we had the first attack and two weeks later another attempt to kill and maim on the london underground, luckily one that didn't come off. one attack often leads to another. the security situation is heightened, plotters become concerned they might be discovered and pulled into the net of investigation going on and they move forward with their plans, it's something the security services have to be very aware of and they very much will be in this case. they will be worried. obviously there was a lot of praise for the security zones services and they talked about the plots they had foiled over a large period of time since the 7/7 bombings? by talked about the 3000 people they have to keep tabs on that they talked. they could be plotting as we speak. there aren't unlimited resources to follow these people. it takes a dozen, two dozen, possibly three dozen on occasion to follow one person around the country 24/7 so resources aren't there to do that but we have to make decisions and it's difficult and in a plot like this, as it appears to be, the planning could be basic, let's hire a van and get some weapons and do this and that doesn't take long for several people who are like—minded to put together as an another incident that was almost missed in the things that have been going on in the last few months, a man was arrested almost outside downing street with a bagful of knives the theory is that he was under surveillance and police let him get as far as they could to gather as much evidence as possible of what he was intending to do and then arrested him. that goes to show how the decisions taken by the security services can be difficult. they can be split second and life—and—death are at stake. difficult staff. the police will be very clear to get the identities of these men involved in this and then find out who they may be connected with, to reassure the security systems that there is not something else planned tomorrow or the next day. that is key to the government to understand. you are saying the police seemed to be on the scene so quickly, because of the heightened state of the terror alert it was critical, even so, many more armed police on the streets of central london. we are not clear when the first officers arrived here at the scene. first officers arrived here at the scene. the nearest officers would have been the british transport police over the road at london bridge. they have armed officers. i think it is likely to have been armed officers on the station at the time. it is clearly a potential terrorist target. we don't know when they are right. we spoke to one eyewitness who doesn't tell me he saw police officers. we are yet to work out the timing of when shots may have been fired so that is a big question we would like to know, what sort of response that was. they are ready and i was briefed along with a number of other journalists about the preparations of the police. what does the metropolitan police but all around the country. the civil nuclear constabulary have armed officers that can be used and a much higher level of training, far more serious weaponry, capable of holding an area in a sustained gunfight with terrorist. not something that happened in this case but something they are trained for. interestingly, trained to shoot to stop a vehicle which is a change in the procedures that police had. previously they had a method of working which prevented them shooting at a vehicle because an uncontrolled vehicle can be dangerous. in this case you can clearly see that it is at the decision they might have to take. it gives you an indication of the level of training that officers are now going through to deal with things like this. london now, another attack and we have seen so many in europe. people need to get used this way of life, they? we saw parol done at paris, brussels, berlin, nice... police said very little, perhaps even police said very little, perhaps even less than the metropolitan police said when parliament was attacked in march. they said they need people to remain calm and vigilant and to remain alert. they have also put out advice about being aware of what is going on, running from the scene if something is happening, hiding and telling the police, reporting what is going on. that is very important as well. they put that advice out that shows they are trying to get messages out. dramatic advice, really. it is. and they have thought about it carefully. the advice is sometimes a little bit different, the official advice, however is to get out of the area and tell police and if you cannot get out of the area than hide. the weather police communications work nowadays is to talk directly via twitter, via social media, to public. not to worry about what people like me may say in reporting what they say. speak directly to the public and had eve ryo ne speak directly to the public and had everyone can get speak directly to the public and had everyone can get on speak directly to the public and had everyone can get on with the light of this awful stuff happens around them. thank you for being with us. but at home affairs correspondent following all of the development for is here in central london. i would like to do is bring you a couple of eyewitnesses who i spoke too early. robbie and joshua who were in the area and told me what they saw. we were in the pub. my friend was getting a taxi. i left and across the road got a taxi i looked out the window towards the pub. josh went back get another friend and a few seconds later i saw 20 or 30 people trying to run inside the pub which i thought was rather odd and then a few seconds after that a white van came speeding down the pavement and crashed into a lamppost or a wall of something. and then i saw a few mailsjump something. and then i saw a few mails jump out of the front of the van and start running down the road and that's when the taxi driver sped off. he did not know what was going on and he thought it may have been some on and he thought it may have been some sort of terrorist attack. at first with maybe a car accident the aggressiveness of the people jumping out of the band did not seem quite right. so the taxi driver sped off down the road. and what did come from what you can tell, what did these men look like? they look like they were two or three males, they jumped out of the van. they seemed very aggressive. there may have been shouting. we were on the other side of the road in a taxi and it is hard to make out what was going on. like isaid, at to make out what was going on. like i said, at first it seemed like it could have been a, you know, a car accident, somebody losing control of accident, somebody losing control of a van. but the aggressiveness and speed with which people jumped out of the van and started running down the road... it was quite a horrible sight. did you see any of the casualties that had been caused by the van? no, i did not see anyone immediately get hit the taxi driver drove us down the road and we saw someone drove us down the road and we saw someone who seemed as if he was badly injured. but i did not see the van hit anyone. graduate now to your friend as well? joshua, the friend you mentioned. joshua, tell us what you mentioned. joshua, tell us what you witnessed. so, um, robjust told you witnessed. so, um, robjust told you he was in a taxi across the road. he got in and i went back to the pub. i popped in and i was in there for about ten or 15 seconds to get my friend. i walked outside and i cannot get my friend. i walked outside and icannot remember get my friend. i walked outside and i cannot remember whether or not people were running in or what. i rememberthere being people were running in or what. i remember there being commotion. and we are talking about two metres away from the front of the pub entrance was this van, a white van which crashed into the railingsjust was this van, a white van which crashed into the railings just to the side. so i could sort of see the wheels were all smashed up. it did not look too bad. when i saw it i thought 0k, not look too bad. when i saw it i thought ok, this looks sort of like an accident. i did not particularly think it was a terrorist incident at this point. and, like i said, i came out with my friend and we looked across at where the taxi had been and that was gone. the taxi had gone, there was nothing there. there was no—one in the van but then i heard people running up steps next to the pub and i heard him shout he has a nice! his stabbing people! so thatis has a nice! his stabbing people! so that is all we heard and, um, and then we ran. my friend told me to run and call your family. we ran towards london bridge station. i try towards london bridge station. i try to get hold of a couple of people. i'll be honest with you, i did not really see like anyone. there was commotion but there was not a huge amount of information ring disseminated between people. some people were just walking around as if that were normal, some were panicking. particularly in the station it was as though half the people had not a clue what was going on. even though i sort of storeyed, sort of, part of it, i still did not know what was going on. i definitely saw the van crashed into gate fence area. it looked mangled and, like i said, isaw area. it looked mangled and, like i said, i saw people running, a guy running up the stairs and that is when he shouted that he has a knife. what was going through your mind. what was going through your mind. what was going through your mind when you heard those words? honestly... it took me a long time to realise what was going on. sol did not fully believe what was happening. i had been out there ten seconds earlierjust with my friend at the taxi, literally went in to get someone, at the taxi, literally went in to get someone, came at the taxi, literally went in to get someone, came out and ijust thought it was... the car looked mangled. i thought it was an innocent swerve off the road which, at the time, and only when i heard this guy shout, you know, he has a knife, and honestly, i still did not believe it. my friend shouted at me to run on call my family and ijust followed him. i did not react too much but, um, yeah, it was certainly strange when i walked out. there was a strange atmosphere when the van was there you could see and don't think anyone knew what was going on. as soon as the guy shout about, that was when people started running. i think a was when people started running. i thinka fairfew was when people started running. i think a fair few people ended up staying in the pub, they were in there for a little bit. i don't know what happened to them. i think they are all fine. that was joshua land and robbie talking to me earlier on. two eyewitnesses to what happened. we are hearing that 20 people have been taken to six different hospitals in this part of london. 20 casualties taken to six hospitals in this part of london as a result of what appears to be a terror attack dog a white van driven at high speed around 50 mph across london bridge, swerving deliberately into pedestrians. a number of casualties there and what appears to have been several men getting out of the vehicle and running and carrying out knife attacks on passes buyers —— pedestrians. an hour from knife attacks on passes buyers —— pedestrians. an hourfrom another eyewitness. —— let's speak now to another eyewitness. i was on the south side of the bridge and, literally, the van was on the wrong side of the road and my first thought was that the brakes had failed because he was going quickly across failed because he was going quickly across the wrong side of the road. a white van with yellow stripes. one that a family can usually higher. it literally just veered to that a family can usually higher. it literallyjust veered to the right and people there were trying to run away from the van. no—one was heard from the impact, that i saw, my first thought was maybe the people who got out were running to the people they had nearly run over, that they were worried about them and trying to comfort them because it was obviously an accident. they literally just started ticking it was obviously an accident. they literallyjust started ticking them, punching them. they took out knives and it was a rampage, really. then they headed down towards southwark cathedral and then they were running at people, people were in disbelief at people, people were in disbelief at what happened and did not know what was happening. and people on the bus, like, fighting back as they we re the bus, like, fighting back as they were getting attacked with knives and the three of them decided to turn back, to make their way back up the bridge and two stopped and they started stabbing people staring at them. one of them continued walking towards the bridge. i don't know if he came up to the bridge again or headed into borough market but that is when i decided to turn around and run to the north of the bridge. the whole way across the bridge there we re whole way across the bridge there were just people bleeding. whole way across the bridge there werejust people bleeding. they whole way across the bridge there were just people bleeding. they were trying to help each other and trying to bea trying to help each other and trying to be a good samaritan. eric, could we to be a good samaritan. eric, could we go back a little bit? welcome to bbc news, broadcasting on bbc one in the uk and on bbc world news. i'm ben brown. police in london say two incidents, which have left at least one person dead and others injured, are being treated as terrorism. it swerved into pedestrians deliberately causing a number of casualties on london bridge. the occu pa nts of casualties on london bridge. the occupants of the white van getting out of the vehicle and racing through to borough market, which is nearby, carrying out knife attacks. a number of casualties, we are hearing 20 people have been taken to six different hospitals nearby,