British police identify 3rd London attacker as Italian of Moroccan descent

LONDON — British police on Tuesday named the third London Bridge attacker as 22-year-old Youssef Zaghba from east London, offering further suggestions that the plot was hatched locally even as questions were raised about gaps in counterterrorism surveillance.

It now appears that at least two of the three assailants were known to British intelligence services, putting Prime Minister Theresa May and top law enforcement officials under pressure to explain what more, if anything, could have been done to stop the attack in London that left seven dead and dozens injured.

A senior Italian police official told The Washington Post that Zaghba was born in Fez, Morocco, in January 1995. The son of a Moroccan father and Italian mother, he lived for a time in Italy and had been suspected of associating with a terrorist organization, the official said.

In an interview with Italy’s Radio 24, Giuseppe Amato, chief prosecutor in Bologna, said Zaghba, an Italian national, had been flagged in March 2016 at the ­Bologna airport en route to Turkey because he was traveling on a one-way ticket with only a backpack as luggage.

Read the whole story from The Washington Post.

Featured image courtesy of Reuters