London: In a suspected terror attack, a person believed to be a British soldier was on Saturday beheaded near a barrack here by two reported Islamists who were later shot and wounded by the police.
British police shot and wounded the two assailants, a senior officer said, after reports that a soldier was killed in a Woolwich street near a London army barracks.
"Two men, who we believe from early reports to have been carrying weapons, were shot by police," Commander Simon Letchford said.
10, Downing Street has called a meeting of the Government`s Cobra emergency committee after the incident, which Prime Minister David Cameron described as "truly shocking".
Cameron said there were "strong indications that it is a terrorist incident" and the UK would "never buckle" in the face of such attacks.
Senior police officers are thought to believe the killing was a politically-motivated Islamist terrorist attack and video has emerged that appears to show one of the alleged attackers attempting to justify the pair`s actions, the Telegraph reported.
Footage showed one of the men with a bloodied meat cleaver making political statements.
"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 on Saturday, 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," he added.
Dozens of weapons - including a number of knives - and pools of blood could be seen on the ground, where a man wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt is said to have been attacked by two men.
According BBC quoting senior Whitehall sources, the people carrying out the attack were heard saying `Allahu Akbar` [God is Great].
Local MP Nick Raynsford said he had been told the man attacked on the street was a soldier serving at the Royal Artillery Barracks.
Whitehall sources have told the BBC it is "a fair supposition" that the incident was a terrorist incident but police have not commented publicly on the suggestion. On Twitter, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson described the attack as a "sickening deluded and unforgivable act of violence".
Buckingham Palace says the Queen is concerned at the news of the attack and is being kept informed.
London Ambulance Service confirmed one man had been found dead at the scene. It said two men had been taken to hospital, one in a serious condition.
One of the men was airlifted from the scene, and another was taken away by road ambulance.
One witness, identified only as James, said two men had attacked another man, aged about 20, who was wearing a T-shirt of military charity Help for Heroes.
"These two guys were crazed. They were just animals. They dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road and left his body there," he told LBC radio.
He said after the "horrendous" attack, the two men, who were also in their 20s, stood around, waving knives and a gun, and asked people to take pictures of them "as if they wanted to be on TV or something".
PTI
