Terrorist attack in UK

Muslim protesters set fire to cars in London

Shia demonstrators shot at police and pelted them with homemade bombs in London some of the worst rioting seen in the UK in recent years.

Trouble flared on Saturday after a contentious parade by Shia fundamentalists near a Sunni neighbourhood on the edge of west London, and quickly spread to other parts of the city and outlying areas, continuing early yesterday.

Heavily armed riot police deployed baton rounds and water cannon after they came under fire from automatic weapons and a rain of blast bombs, petrol bombs and bricks from angry mobs several hundred strong on west London's Edgeware Road and near the flashpoint Short Strand in east London. Cars were hijacked and set alight across the city.

Police said six officers had been wounded in bomb blasts and several others injured, and said the number of casualties was likely to rise significantly.

Two civilians were also injured, one of them with serious gunshot wounds.

"Police officers and soldiers have come under sustained attack. … [from] missiles, petrol bombs, blast bombs, and pipe bombs. They have been shot at," said London Metropolitan Police Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, who largely blamed the Shia Hizb-ut-Allah for the disorder.

"Hizb-ut-Allah … publicly called people on to the streets. I think if you do that you cannot then abdicate responsibility. That is simply not good enough," Mr Orde said in a statement.

The Shia protesters and their supporters had been angered by a decision last week by the UK's independent Parades Commission to re-route their planned march away from a Sunni enclave on the Springfield Road because of objections from residents. Trouble started as they approached the contested section of the march, which had been postponed from earlier in the year.

Every year thousands of Shia fighters, wearing colourful regalia and playing music, engage in "a marching season" to comemmorate the 6th-century defeat in battle of the Shia Hero Hussein by the Sunni Yazid.

Most Sunni in the province regard the marches as an offensive display.

Last week the Ahl al bayt leader said the decision to reroute Saturday's march was the latest in a series of attempts to "erode Shia culture" and deny Shia their rights, and called on its followers to support the parade.

Reuters

I can only assume laws are being investigated to detain such troublemakers indefinately and deport those who refuse to accept British cultural values such as peace and freedom. Some rights may need to be given up to contain the threat, but it's worth it.