London Bridge attack

Terrorists who killed eight people on London Bridge had pumped themselves full of steroids before launching their brutal van and knife rampage on Saturday night revellers, a pre-inquest hearing has heard.

Two men appeared in a London court accused of plotting to kill British Prime Minister Theresa May. UK intelligence claims to have thwarted the alleged assassination plan, one of nine terrorist schemes spies have reportedly prevented in 2017.

London police have released the first pictures of the fake suicide belts worn by the London Bridge attackers. The belts, all attached to the men at the moment when they were shot dead, looked genuine, police said.

British police say casualties from the London Bridge attack could have been much worse had the attackers succeeded in hiring a 7.5-ton truck instead of a van, which was used to plow through a crowd of pedestrians during the first stage of their bloody onslaught.

The mother of Youssef Zaghba, one of the three men responsible for the deadly vehicle and stabbing attack on London Bridge, says she never believed her son’s terrorist intentions, especially after years of close police surveillance.

As Home Secretary, Theresa May ensured that counter-terror police were overruled to allow the Manchester bomber and his father, a known member of Al-Qaeda's Libyan affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, to train and fight in Libya.