Live updates here from BBC - Incident now being treated by the government as a suspected Islamic terrorist attack, says the BBC's Nick Robinson
Update: Officials are calling it an Islamist terror attack.
Prime Minister David Cameron said the attack was "truly shocking" and called for an emergency meeting of security officials.
"Those meetings are not convened lightly," writes BBC Home Affairs Correspondent Dominic Casciani. "The fact is that all available accounts point towards this being a terrorist incident carried out by someone inspired by al-Qaeda's jihadist ideology. If that's the case it would be the first such incident leading to a death of someone other than the perpetrator since the London suicide bombings of 2005."
Writer Douglas Murray likens the attack to other Islamist murders, including the killing of Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh. "Over recent years, those who have warned that such attacks would come here have been attacked as 'racists', 'fascists' and — most commonly — 'Islamophobes,' Murray writes. "A refusal to recognise the actual threat (a growingly radicalised Islam) has dominated most of our media and nearly all our political class.
"Watching this roll out has made me — and most other ordinary people — feel sick. It should always have been obvious where such idiocy and denial would lead. It leads to Woolwich. It leads to a British soldier being decapitated in our capital city in broad daylight."
HT: InfidelBloggers.Several witnesses described seeing a "beheading" while another described seeing a man wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt being attacked with a machete-style knife and dumped in a south east London street. Woolwich and Greenwich MP NickRaynsford said it was his understanding that one person, a serving soldier, was dead and his two alleged killers were taken to hospital.
London Ambulance Service confirmed a man was found dead at the scene, while two other men were taken to hospital, one of them in a serious condition.
One witness, identified as James, said he and his partner saw two black men attack a young man aged around 20 in a Help for Heroes T-shirt with kitchen knives like he was "a piece of meat".
"They were hacking at this poor guy, literally," he told LBC radio."They were hacking at him, chopping him, cutting him."Fighting back tears, he added: "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 said that after the "horrendous" attack, the two men, in their 20s, just stood around, waving knives and a gun, even asking people nearby to take pictures of them "as if they wanted to be on TV or something".
"They were oblivious to anything, they were more worried about having their photo taken, running up and down the road," he said. "They had no intention of running off or leaving or anything.
"In my opinion, they were waiting for the police to arrive to be shot by the police. That's the only thing I can think. "It's horrendous what they were doing to that guy."
Some "brave" women tried to shield the man on the ground from them, he added.
He also said that it was 20 minutes before armed police arrived at the scene.
"When the armed police came flying around the corner, the man with the beanie hat, the tall guy, he charged at the police vehicle," he said.
"A shot was fired by the other guy with the gun.
"Six shots were fired, both men went down and we now know they are dead as well."
London Air Ambulance confirmed that one patient was airlifted from the scene, while another was taken away by road ambulance. Mr Raynsford said he had spoken to both borough commander Richard Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Bob Christopher at Woolwich Barracks.
He said: "The incident occurred early afternoon. One individual is dead, two others are seriously injured and in hospital. "The circumstances causing the incident are not yet clear. It's been suggested it was the product of a road traffic accident, but that's pure speculation.Read the full story here.
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| Eyewitness: Twitter user Boya Dee wrote that the suspects tried to attack police officers after hacking at a man with a machete |
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