24-May-13: Allegedly slaughtering people on the streets of London, and what we know about it

The caption on this new photo says "Gemini Donnelly-Martin, 20, and
her mother Amanda (right) talk to one of the alleged attackers
with blood on his hands. Meanwhile, Ingrid
Loyau-Kennett (left) talks to the other suspect,
identified as Michael Adebowale. Lee Rigby lies dead in the road

The two Woolwich slaughtermen who allegedly carried out the alleged mutilation and alleged murder of a British soldier in London on Wednesday in front of a crowd of onlookers and rolling cameras after allegedly driving at him with their car and knocking him violently to the ground (allegedly) are alleged today to be:

• Michael Adebolajo, 28 - Nigerian descent, British citizen, resident of Greenwich, south east London, raised Christian but turned to Islam in mid-teens and eventually converted [Source: Evening Standard]
• Michael Oluwatobi Adebowale, 22 - Nigerian descent, British citizen, resident of Harold Hill, London, also an Islamic convert, son of a probation officer.

For now, they are being depicted as lone wolves. We'll see.

A sense of their allegedly religious inspiration can be gleaned from what they said when they spoke directly into the cameras. Here (direct quotes) is what they declaimed after the "hacking, chopping, cutting" butchering of Lee Rigby, their victim. The source is AFP:

• We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you unless you leave us alone.
• We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
• I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. 
• You people will never be safe. 
• Remove your government, they don’t care about you.
• You think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? You think politicians are going to die? No it’s going to be the average guy, like you, and your children. So get rid of them. 
• Tell them to bring our troops back so can all live in peace.” (Additional words are inaudible.)

They are "among the 3,000 Muslim extremists in Britain being watched by MI5", and "believed to have been radicalised..." [Daily Mail UK].

British intelligence, according to the Daily Express, has had the two specific alleged savages under their watchful gaze for eight years

"MI5 had the two Islamist fanatics who butchered soldier Lee Rigby under ­surveillance for up to eight years, it was revealed yesterday. Agents kept [them] “on the radar” as they monitored the activities of would-be terrorists. Intelligence sources said the men had featured in “several investigations” in recent years but there was no indication they were plotting an attack and they were classified as fringe figures." [Daily Express]

Which has led to decisive (!) action by the political leadership:

David Cameron yesterday ordered an urgent review into what MI5 had gleaned about the two men and whether any chances were missed of intercepting them before the murder in Woolwich, south London. The move revives memories of the lost opportunities to capture two of the 7/7 suicide bombers who were secretly watched by MI5 as they met other terrorist suspects months before the 2005 atrocity. In a major development yesterday, two suspected members of the Woolwich “terror cell” were arrested on ­suspicion of conspiracy to murder by ­Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism squad. The suspects, a man and a woman both aged 29, were detained by armed police in dawn raids and were being questioned at a south London police station last night. [Daily Express]

And a little less decisiveness by local leadership: London mayor Boris Johnson, full of reassurance as usual, said:

Everything I am hearing leads me to think that Londoners can go about their business in the normal way and we are going to bring the killers to justice. [Globe and Mail]

From the same source:

In Washington, President Barack Obama said the U.S. “stands resolute with the United Kingdom” in the fight against violent extremism. [Globe and Mail]

So much resoluteness. The picture is already improving, allegedly.