breaking news. tonight british authorities say six civilians and three attackers have been killed in what they are describing as a protracted terrorist incident in central london. police report just after 10:00 a.m. local time, 5:00 p.m. eastern time, a white van traveling south on london bridge veered off the road and struck several passing pedestrians. police blooe three attackers then emerged from the van with knives and began stabbing people in nearby borough market. that's a busy area with bars and restaurants. armed police responded to the scene and shot and killed three

suspects, who police say were wearing what looked like explosive vests, but that the explosives were fake. one widely circulated photo, the one you're looking at here, taken by a witness and not confirmed by nbc news appears to show one man on the ground surrounded by police and wearing what appears to be a vest with sc canisters on it. police now say those canisters were fake. at least 20 patients have been brought to london hospitals. >> since late yesterday evening on saturday the 3rd of june, the metropolitan police have been responding to incidents in london bridge and borough market areas of london. we're treating this as a terrorist incident and a full investigation is around underway led by london's counter terrorism command. you will understand that our

knowledge of the incident is still growing, but at the moment what we understand is as follows. at 8 minutes past 10:00 last night we began to receive reports that a vehicle had struck pedestrians on london bridge. the vehicle continued to drive then from london bridge to borough market. the suspects left the vehicle, attempting to stab a number of people, including an on duty british transport police officer who was responding to the incident. he received serious injuries. fortunately not life threatening. his family have been informed. armed response officers then responded very quickly and bravely and confronted the three male suspects who were shot and killed in borough market. the suspects had been confronted and shot by police within eight minutes of the first call. the suspects were wearing what looked like explosive vests, but these were later established to be hoaxes. the ongoing operation is led by

british transport police, city of london police and the mets and city's am balanbulances and services. we believe that six people have died fwhiin addition to the thr people shot by police. i'd like to repeat our request for londoners to avoid the areas of london bridge and borough market to enable the emergency services to continue this operation. this investigation, as i've said, is led by the counter terrorism command. we ask for help from the public in the following way. anybody who's got any images or film from tonight, they can help by loading it to www.ukima

www.ukimageappeal.co.u.k. those who are involved and are concerned about loved ones in the area, that should contact 8-800-0961-233. looking forward we were of course reviewing our plans for policing stance across london. in the forthcoming days people can expect to see more police forces around the capital. >> can you tell us, is this instant completely over now? >> our current belief is that there were three attackers, but this is early on, so we've still got some inquiries to work through to be completely kr lly confident about this. this is a protracted accident that starts on the bridge and

ends in borough market and we believe three people were involved. but we've still got some inquiries to do. >> can you tell us about the attacks where people were killed? >> we're still getting to the bottom of what's going own and it's still quite a complex scene. we're still dealing with we expected at once the explosives but that's now been ruled out. last question. >> can you tell us a little bit more about the people involved in the operation to bring down these terrorists. >> we have strengthened our arm police presence around london in recent years. we've got more armed response vehicles. it's those armed response vehicles that responded quickly, bravely confronted these three individuals, shot them and they are dead. that's finished. thank you. >> latest information from scotland yard there that the response in which the three

suspected attackers were killed happened within eight minutes of the first call. police confirming six dead, three assailants shot dead by police. the number of people in the hospital, 20 in various area hospitals although london ambulance has just now increased that number. the tally is now 30 people being treated in various hospitals. they are asking people to submit any images they have of the incident to police and to avoid the areas. here's what police say happened. a vehicle drove south on london bridge, it hit a number of people. it then went to borough market, which is a covered area which has restaurants and bars in it. the vehicle then stopped there. the three men got out of it and began stabbing people, which now it's interesting to know why if they had suicide vests with exploesives on them did they stab people. the police are saying the explosives were fake.

they were then confronted by armed police and shot. i want to bring in fabio lamass. tell us what you were doing there and what you saw. >> good easterninvening. at the time i was working and saw two customers by the door getting a bit rowdy. i went to check what was happening and all i heard was knives, knives! i got all my colleagues to start locking all doors and gates and i got people to start evacuating inside from our little garden that we have in the bar that i work and got people to come in to the bar and go into the toilets, hide under tables and hide in our cellar where we keep our stock and just wait until police could come. once the police did arrive, there was plenty of shots fired,

more than 15 if i can recall. at a time i saw one u.s. citizen, i believe, laying close by to where the police were shooting, because he was very close to the window when the police shot one of the terrorists and the bullets might have injured him. there was a few people inside the pub assisting him, trying to keep the blood pressure to his head, because he had a shot wound on his head and they were trying to keep pressure with a belt. >> so someone who was near your pub may have been hit by a stray bullet from the police? >> yes, that is correct. one of our customers was inside and he was very close to the window while the police were shooting. >> so the gunshot went through the window?

do you know what his condition is? >> i have no idea, but he looked very badly injured. >> you say more than 15 shots fired. did you at any point see the suspects? >> yes. before the police got there, i saw three men stabbing one guy who was laying on the floor, patting him on the face, the chest, the stomach as much as he possibly could. >> wow. you invited people into the pub to try and give them some shelter so they could try and get behind things, below things. >> basically we have a small garden outside where our customers come in and spend time outside. basically we just got people to where we have secure, locking premises. that's what we did. we brought everyone inside that covered area, protecting from outside entries to the pub. >> how did you determine and how

long before you were able to determine that this was over and you could let people out and you could come out to see what happened? >> the police wanted to evacuate us and they gave us a signal to open doors and they just told us to run as fast as we could and just get home. >> the police were saying that the confrontation occurred within eight minutes of them receiving the call. what's your sense of the timeline from when you first realized there was a commotion to when you heard the gunshots? >> it was very quickly, from what i remember. maybe i managed to get every customer safe and the doorins locks. it was under five minutes and the police were there and action was being taken. >> just tell me a little bit about the market, about the area. we're referring to it as borough market. how would you describe this to

someone who doesn't know what borough market is? >> it's a food market monday to saturday and from thursday to saturday it's extremely busy. it's absolutely packed full of people. it's g it's open from morning to afternoon and people go there to try food and buy fresh food such as cheeses and meats and fish. if they'd have come a bit earlier on that day it could have been catastrophic. >> what is the normal security around a place like borough market? >> there's borough market security. it's people who are hired by the organizers of the borough

market. and any time after 4-5:00 p.m. we start having bouncers for each bar in the area. >> but obviously nobody armed? >> no. >> but the police who arrived -- when you first saw police at the borough market, were they armed police? you heard gunshots. >> they were all armed police. >> did you see a lot of other people injured? you heard knives and you said there was somebody you saw being stabbed. did you see a lot of people getting injured? >> i saw a lot of people laying on the floor. for me to witness this for the first time it's real shocking. you just act in the moment. >> fabio, we count on the fact that people who experience this for the first time get the correct human instinct and do what you did to try and find shelter for people.

our gratitude to you for that. i'm sorry you had to witness what you did. fabio lamass worked in a pub there and he worked very hard tonight to try and make sure people were safe. let's go back to matt bradley from london. you and i spoke an hour ago. so much as developed in that last hour. we now know police have killed three assailants. you had discussed some explosions being heard. tell me more about this. >> reporter: we don't know that much. that wasn't really mentioned in depth in the press conference by the met police, also known as scotland yard. but we know this basically from social media, from what we heard from people in the area. they said they heard 3-4 explorexplor explosio explosions. there was a lot of speculation this was a continuous part of the terror attack, that these

were explosions in anger, if you will. turned out that the police then stated these were controlled explosions that were used basically as part of their effort to search for the suspects. but the police in this press conference, they clarified a lot of things that had been up in the air. when this all started we were told there were three separate incidents, one at vauxhall, one at london bridge and one at borough market. now it seems like there was only one incident. the vauxhall was just a separate stabbing incident. with this press conference now, it's become clear there were only three perpetrators. and the three perpetrators were very likely the same perpetrators who then started stabbing people nearby in borough market. this is starting to look a lot

like the march 22nd incident when a man named khalid masood used a sedan car and crashed into pedestrians on westminster bridge, got out of his car, stabbed a police officer before he was shot to death himself. this is starting to look something like a copy cat attack but with more people involved. the fact that there were three people here means that the police are going to be looking for even more witnesses. in all of these incidents, all of these european terror attacks, it's always looked like lone wolf attacks. but with three people involved the police are now going to be looking for even more people who may have helped them, who may be ide ide ideal -- we're going to see

something like the manchester attacks where police arrested more than a dozen people. we're going to see a huge manhunt not just across london but across the entire country and likely into other countries as well as police try to suss who was behind it. >> police saying in addition to the fact that six civilians were killed and the three men who were the suspects were killed, that they were wearing belts. we were just discussing the photograph of the men on the ground with the belts and it turns out that the explosives were fake. so they were designed to look perhaps like suicide belts. it would be interesting to know what the motivation there was, because it didn't jibe with the fact that they got out of the van and started stabbing people if they had suicide belts. police saying that was fake.

not sure what to make of that just yet. >> when it comes to the suicide belts, i would imagine they would be used as intimidation. it was clear that the perpetrators wanted to try to go into one of these popular restaurants in borough market and continue the attack there. it's fairly obvious we can say with some certainty that this wasn't exactly a very well planned out attack and these guys might have lost track of exactly their plan once things got rolling and once the chaos really kind of blossomed around them. these three men, they weren't well armed. they only had knives. they were weaponize izinizing . at the end of the day they only killed six people. and while that's a terrible tragedy, there were three men armed that only managed to kill

six people. >> if they were wearing these fake explosive devices, they probably had some other plan in mind that never came to fruition. >> just to confirm, we've been hearing on and off there may have been firearms involved. it does not seem that the assailants had firearms. >> that's right. it seems as though the gunshots that so many witnesses reported hearing, like these controlled explosions, these were from the police side. and we know that the police were able to very quickly subdue these attackers. as i mentioned before, having armed police on the streets of london, that's a new development. that's something that's happened just in the last year as terror attacks have just come all throughout europe. now, at the beginning of 2017, londoners and british people had thought that they had managed to avoid a lot of the rash of terrorism that's been going on

all throughout europe. just since march, there's now been three terror attacks. one of them in manchester killed 22 people, the largest terror attack since 2005. clearly if terrorism had missed britain before, it's making up for lost time in just the last couple of months. let's take a quick break. we will be back with our live special coverage of the terror attacks in london. uh- i- [sound of wrench] [intricate guitar riff] [engine starts] [guitar continues]

♪ ♪ welcome to holiday inn! ♪ ♪ thank you! ♪ ♪ wait, i have something for you! ♪ ♪ making every stay a special stay. holiday inn, smiles ahead. whether for big meetings or little getaways, member always save more at holidayinn.com there's nothing more than my vacation.me so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. and with their price match, i know i'm getting the best price every time. now i can start relaxing even before the vacation begins.

your vacation is very important. that's why booking.com makes finding the right hotel for the right price easy. visit booking.com now to find out why we're booking.yeah! when heartburn hits fight back fast with new tums chewy bites. fast relief in every bite. crunchy outside. chewy inside. tum tum tum tum new tums chewy bites.

our coverage of the london terror attack continues. you and i didn't talk that long ago and yet so much as developed. we've had some detailed reports from people about what transpired. we now know that the assailants have been killed. the strangest thing about this, we saw a photograph of it earlier of a man wearing what

appears to be an explosive vest, the police now saying those explosive vests were fake. these men did not have guns. they used knives and their van. six people dead, the assailants dead. >> the first thing is that, look, terrorists, their tactics change. i think we've heard speculation -- you had a previous guest who talked about -- it was an atf who said if they saw something like this, they would treat it as a bomb. i'm speculating but that's probably their intent. the terrorist, their games and aims are still the same. their tactics change. >> tell me what you make of three assailants, not one which we've seen in the last two attacks in great britain and in the attack in nice and the truck attack in germany.

three assailants, an improvised plan, a van running down people and then going at them with knives. the reason i'm asking you this is because we had a discussion a while ago in which she said we're trying to draw lines between isis and al qaeda and these attackers when in fact they just may be successfully inspiring them. >> that's exactly right. if we can say 9/11 was sort of the pinnacle moment for counter terrorism and how things have shifted from september 11th to how they are now. 9/11 was foreign, primarily saudi men that entered the united states on visas and attacks from within. now we're shifting to completely the other spectrum. we're seeing people that are being radicalized or home grown. that is perhaps the more

nefarious and dangerous trend. nefarious because it's very difficult to track it. when you're looking at a profile, you can track for things like someone who has left the country. but when that person has never left -- in fact, we've seen in the u.k. attacks previously with people who wanted to leave and found it to be too difficult and in fact stayed. it goes down to that the goal is the same. it's the tactics are shifting. whether it's al qaeda or isis, i think you're going to start seeing an attempt to continue to radicalize people from within those states that they attack. that is a very dangerous and difficult thing to counter. >> when you think of all the years since 9/11 and the various other attacks around the world, we have tried to harden soft targets, but we've not wanted to give up our liberty. in france after the attacks cafe society persists. in london and new york and germany, people gather outside. that's what they do. you heard my conversation with

fabio lamass who worked in that pub inside borough market. he told us what he did to try and protect people when he heard of the commotion. they invited people in. they tried to get them to their garden. is that the way we harden soft targets in america or in europe? we're not really looking to have security guards outside of everywhere that we congregate. >> if that's what we're going to count on to be the primary line of defense to stop these attacks, we've already failed. the good news is it's not. that's why we have a robust, active intelligence community. it's very important that -- again, we're seeing tonight as reactive. we're seeing law enforcement securing a crime scene, making sure there's no other perpetrators about. but the reality is the intelligence community is really the first line and defense to detect and neutralize these events before they even come to

this. going back to the idea or a terrorist attack, there are two parts of them, one is the kinetic one, the second part is the fear. the attack is never as big as the fear they want to perpetrate. out of every one of these attacks, we're always seen society refuse to bow to fear. >> it is an interesting response, an interesting part of the human spirit, that the attack may be relatively small -- this isn't to diminish anybody who's been injured or whose lives are lost. the attack is relativity small. the mediaimmediate response and of fears is very very large. and then normal society prevails. >> i'm a 9/11 generation person. i look at the world pre-9/11 and post-9/11.

the terrorist attacks inspired me to join the military. i don't think that i'm unique. i think there's plenty of people who will look at this and be horrified, plenty of muslims and first generation londoners and second and so on. >> the u.k. has had a lot of struggles with home grown islamic extremism and yesterday it is a very integrated country. >> yeah. that's true. europe as a whole has had -- look, again, i wrote an article about this for the foreign policy research institute. but there's a big difference between the integration in many cases in europe and in the united states when it comes to muslims, when it comes to immigrants. we go back to orlando. one of the first people that raised the alarm against this awful person was in fact someone who was in the mosque with him, who went to the fbi and said there's something not right here. that actually led to fbi

surveillance. i think it's so important to recognize that these are such a small percentage of these communities. when it comes to policing, when it comes to intelligence, the best way -- when you think about the nypd, if you see something, say something. when it comes to that line of defense, in many cases it's the community. we've seen belgium. >> they don't have this right in a lot of mainland european countries. these are colonial countries that just weren't able to deal with these waves of immigration that same came in and figure ou to integrate people. none of which is an excuse for terrorism. >> it's the community policing.

it's the broken windows. you have to rely on people who are there who can say something. this is heart wrenching stuff. but if they don't trust the police or don't trust the intelligence community, they're not going to do it. that is such an important part. >> it's an important i want to tell people what we know right now. we have been told by police that six civilians have been killed, three perpetrators have been shot dead by police. they were wearing vests that seemed to have explosives on them. police say they were fake. they did stab a number of people. 30 people in area hospitals being treated. 15 shotsfired, police responding to the scene eight minutes after the first call came in.

>> i saw people running, screaming. somebody was injured. i've seen people with some blood. it's been like the worst day of my life honestly. when you see these kind of things in front of the tv, but when actually you see people and you hear people screaming, it's a totally different thing. it's scary. ♪ pressure. i feel it everyday. but at night, it's the last thing on my mind.

for 10 years my tempur-pedic has adapted to my weight and shape, relieving pressure points from head to toe. so i sleep deeply and wake up ready to perform. ♪ now through june 11th, save $600 when you buy select tempur-pedic adjustable mattress sets. find your exclusive retailer at tempurpedic.com.

could save money on car insurance.nce you know, the kind of driver who always buckles up... comes to a complete stop... and looks both ways, no matter what. because esurance believes that's the kind of driver who deserves to save money on car insurance. in fact, safe drivers who switch from geico to esurance could save hundreds. so if you switch to esurance, saving is a pretty safe bet. auto and home insurance for the modern world. esurance. an allstate company. click or call. depend silhouette active fit briefs, feature a thin design for complete comfort. they say "move it or lose it" - and at my age, i'm moving more than ever. because getting older is inevitable. but feeling older? that's something i control. get a free sample at depend.com.

our coverage of the terror attacks in london continues now. it is early morning london. let's listen to what a waiter working in an italian restaurant at borough market where the attack took place had to say about it. >> you saw the man? >> i saw the man. >> with the knife? >> i can't describe their face, their clothes, nothing. >> did you see him injuring people? >> i saw just dropping the thing on the floor. that is the table and dropping everything on the floor and i ran out and that's it. i don't see anything more. >> how many people were in the

restaurant at this moment? >> like maybe full. like 60, 100. i don't know, man. right now i don't know. >> which restaurant was this? >> el pastor. >> you were in the restaurant? >> i was working in the restaurant. >> all of a sudden these three men came to the restaurant. >> yeah. the men came to the restaurant, quickly go around to the yard behind the restaurant. >> what was the first thing that you heard then? how did you know what was happening? >> because i saw the face, you know, and the knife. but finally i can't describe right now this face, but i see everything. i see everything. that person started screaming and quickly i run out. >> what you heard there is what we often hear. people see it with their own eyes. over time they may remember something, but it is very hard

to get clarity on what actually happens when an attack is underway. we now have some clarity because the police came out and told us these three guys were shot by police, the three assailants, the three suspects. they had some kind of vest. we may have this picture that our control room can put up. a photographer had taken this image of a guy with some kind of a belt around his waist. >> so the photographer told the bbc that three men wearing these belts that we now know to be hoaxes, as you said, rushed toward civilians. we now know that they were first encountered by a metropolitan transit police officer who put himself between what he must have assumed were suicide bombers and civilians. let's start there as a starting point. an unarmed police officer puts himself between three men he assumes could explode at any

moment and civilians. let's then back up to alex martinez, the person we just heard from there. speaking in a second language, i would imagine from spain. we have heard eyewitnesss from italy, france, germany, america, all out on a saturday night. we now know that one of the attackers made it into a bar in borough market and was basically thrown out of the bar by patrons who threw beer bottles and glasses and whatever they could to force him out of that bomb. within eight minutes the london police had shot dead these three attackers. this is a new world order. you have just come back from the middle east. i was just in london. we know what is happening here and we know that there are terror attacks all over the world. there have been three in the united kingdom since march. the question now that we have to address, that the world has to address, that the united kingdom

and the united states have to address is, how do you fight this problem. in an amazing city like london, how do you fight the problem of a guerilla warfare of people who were willing to sacrifice their lives. >> there's real heroism. this british transport police officer is injured. he's in the hospital. he's got what police say are serious but not life threatening injuries. you heard my conversation with fabio lamass who worked in one of those bars. fabio was trying to shelter people. some patrons were throwing things and trying to take these attackers down and these police responded within eight minutes of the call and shot the alleged assailants dead. >> it's horrifying. it's horrifying to image being able to control your emotions,

to keep your wits about you, to fight off an attacker who's wearing a belt that you have to assume could explode at any moment. metropolitan police were so methodical in their actions. they simply didn't know whether these were hoax devices. you're looking at video now from inside one of those pubs. in one of these other pubs, there was an assailant who was basically forced back out onto the street. that's what has to give us hope, an unarmed police officer putting himself between terrorist bombers and civilians. that is what has to give us hope for the future, because unfortunately these attacks are likely to continue. they are the result of mistaken foreign policies and foreign wars that have grown out of control. people who live in the middle east are living a very different reality than the rest of us around the world. it's how people deal with that

that's going to be important. in the coming days there's going to be lots of questions about was there intelligence missed. should these three individuals been on some kind of a watch list. maybe they were on a watch list. those questions are going to be asked in the british media, amongst the british public. also in parallel with that, in papers around the u.k. are going to be the stories of an unarmed transit officer who put his body between what he thought was a suicide bomber and fleeing civilians. >> those are the small rays of light that you take from a very dark night like this in a place like london. cal, your coverage of this has been invaluable. thank you for that. our coverage of the london terror attacks continues. we'll be right back. omer traffi? can we push the offer online? brian, i just had a quick question.

brian? brian... legacy technology can handcuff any company. but "yes" is here. you're saying the new app will go live monday?! yeah. with help from hpe, we can finally work the way we want to. with the right mix of hybrid it, everything computes. there's nothing more than my vacation.me so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. they offer free cancellation if my plans change. visit booking.com. booking.yeah. at crowne plaza we know business travel isn't just business. there's this. 'a bit of this. why not? your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. which is what we do. crowne plaza. we're all business, mostly.

breaking news continues here on msnbc. we are covering the lon on tdon

terror attacks. earlier i spoke with another individual who witnessed the attack as it unfolded. i want to bring in cane. what did you see? >> we were just coming out of london bridge station and we were about to get the bus to go home. we had to cross the road, which was the cross road between borough market and london bridge. and just before we did, we saw all this police and people running around screaming and looking really terrified. and the police were telling us to get away. we could see a white van that had been parked. we think it was moments after the incident. and we saw the police raiding the van with armed police. and then they were shouting at us to get away from the scene. they seemed really unclear what was happening.

and then we were cordoned off to about 200 meters. we saw maybe 100 people walking by looking sad, looking shocked and crying. i overheard someone announce to someone that they might have lost -- a friend of theirs may have lost their lives. it was unite trquite traumatic. >> when police tell you to get away from a scene like that -- did the police indicate to you where it was safe to go? the van was going south which would be toward the bottom of the map and then you can see that borough market is not far from there as well. were you able to get to a place that you determined to be safe where there wasn't chaos around you? >> well, we were firstly about ten meters away from the van. then the poli they were just screaming at us to get away. so we went south.

we were still about 50 or 60 meters away. then more and more police were coming. this was before they had the cordon and we could see about five or six police cars, met police and then we had the helicopters. i think there was a lot of confusion at the stop. but after about 20 minutes we were all cordoned off at what we think is a safe space. but you never really know, do you? >> it was saturday night 10:00 that you were there. what was the area like outside of london bridge tube station? was it an active place, as you might expect on saturday night? >> of course. as anywhere, it's right in the middle of the city between london bridge, which is one of the biggest stations. borough market famous for the bridget jones film. a lot of tourists go there. it's right on the themes. we were just coming out of the station.

i said to my friend, hey, look, there's a lot of police. i knew something was wrong when we saw the buses stopped in the road, when we saw people running, screaming. we saw a man being chased by the police as well. >> in london, people became acuaku acuss comed to the idea that many police didn't carry weapons with them. and seeing heavily armed police, something that is much more common here in the united states or in new york city, was not a common thing in london. i would imagine in the last year at least, if not a little bit longer, you're become a little more accustomed to that. >> i don't -- i mean, i also grew up in france. so when i went back to france after the paris attack, it was shocking to see as well army people at train stations.

so when this happened in manchester and theresa may announced he woushe would raise critical level, we were shocked. it's strange to see in london not just the normal bobbys with their hats. >> when you came out of that tube station, you didn't see a suspect or suspects or anybody who looked like they were involved in an attack? >> well, it was quite confusing, because we could see the van and we could see people walking around the van. we could see the policemen raiding the van. and then i remember seeing a man in a white shirt running towards the bridge and a policeman was running after him. it's hard to speculate because there were a lot of people running away, running towards it. so running people could mean that he was trying to get to safety. it could mean he was a suspect. we can't really be sure. >> tell me what london feels like now. i know it's 3:00 in the morning

but are all of your friends up and texting and talking about it? is london quieter? is it more busy than usual because of this? >> all of the tubes are closed. i'm with my friends and we're all staying together now. we were all at the incident coming back from the festival actually. we were wondering what we were going to do for saturday night and this happened. it's like the whole city just went on lockdown. everyone is asking are you safe. there's a fear of terror or something. there's a feeling that something's wrong. i guess people are just trying to wonder how to get, you know, their loved ones safe or how to be safe themselves. >> it's important to note that the police have not given the all clear. they haven't sent the message out to londoners that they've apprehended the suspects, how many suspects there are, what the situation is. clearly, they are still in the process of trying to establish

that and that becomes very difficult. londoners are going to wake up early this morning, sunday morning, not sure whether the city is safe. >> definitely. we were walking away from it fr after about five hours waiting to see if we could help, or to see if anything was hamg. as we were walking away on tower bridge, which is the bridge just before it, still a good maybe a mile away from the incident, we heard a loud explosion, a loud bang, followed by two others. so people are saying on social media that there might be controlled explosions. but you just can't know that, can you. >> right. for those of us who aren't in the explosions or anti-terror or law enforcement business, loud bangs are frightening. thank you for joining me. i'm glad you and your friends are safe. i'm sorry that you and other londoners have had to go through this tonight. >> and that was a conversation i had with kaine a little bit earlier. since then we've learned a few

things, the fact that six civilians were killed and police did kill three alleged assailants. we also know 30 people are in area hospitals, and a british transport police officer was injured as he was responding to the attack at the london bridge. he is seriously injured, with injuries to his head, his face, and his leg. but police believe his injuries are not life-threatening. his family is with him at the hospital. i want to go back to matt bradley who is not too far from this scene where this all happened. he's not at the scene because it's shut down and it's been cordoned off. but matt is there. the sun is coming up in london. londoners are waking up. it appears that the scotland yard press conference that they had is sending the message that this incident seems to be over. they're certainly not giving the all-clear. they don't know who is behind this attack. but it sounds like this part of it is over.

>> reporter: that's right, ali. as i mentioned to you before, there are three attackers here, with so many others of what we call lone wosm attacks, where there's just one person. the fact that there are three means this is going to be -- you could almost say three times the manhunt. they're going to be looking at each of these perpetrators and trying to see who they're connected with and whether or not these three people, how they came together, what kind of network they came together in, how they were able to coordinate with each other and whether or not they have accomplices. that's what's going to be happening now. remember, in the past couple of months, just since march, there's been three now major terror attacks in britain. in each of those, the police have spread out and kicked down doors. not just in london, but throughout the country. remember, the massoud incident, that bears the most resemblance to what happened tonight, that was in march. a man named khalid masood jumped up on what they called the

pavement here, the sidewalk, and rammed into several dozen pedestrians. four of them were killed. he then got out of the car, and attacked a police officer who was guarding the parliament building, with a knife, and killed him. he himself was ki8d when he tried to run into the parliament building. that's what this incident looks so much like that. >> let mow ask you something. you and i last talked after manchester, and you and i then talked after paris, the attack in paris, and you and i were together when the westminster bridge attack happened. i want to know what's changed in london as a result of all of this? the context in which i'm asking you about this is, the scotland yard officer said within eight minutes of the call, the armed response teams were on the scene at borough market and shot these three alleged assailants dead. we have eyewitnesses who said they felt like it was like five

minutes after they first realized there was an intent. is this what happened in london, they can have armed response that quickly? >> reporter: that's right. remember, before that, last summer, there was an incident, that witnesses that i talked to then, a year ago, they said that some 50 armed police officers, not just armed in the sense of carrying handguns, armed with long rifles, descended upon russell square and immediately contained the situation. that's after this rash of terror attacks all throughout europe. the metropolitan police have long suspected that london would be the next city that would be hit. several cities have been hit in the intervening months. but london prepared itself, by doing something that most cities in the world wouldn't have to do. they armed their police officers. police officers here in london are famously unarmed.

and that's why, as you go to paris now, you can walk down the streets and you can see soldiers, actual fatigued soldiers carrying huge weapons. you haven't been able to see that in london. and really, you really haven't seen that until just now. the police have really deployed onto the streets in full force, fully visibly armed. it's a strange sight for londoners. they're not used to seeing them patrolling the streets. >> probably a lot of those working in the pub, kaine said he grew up in london. he said it is a remarkable sight to see police with long guns. not something that a londoner would have grown up knowing. >> reporter: that's right, ali. you were asking me, what has changed. well, not -- there's another thing that has changed, something that's coming up on thursday. there's going to be a national

parliamentary election. that's when the prime minister theresa may, she's going to be, not necessarily running for her political life, but she's facing stronger opposition that she anticipated when she called these snap elections. immigration, terrorism, all those issues are going to be on the ballot. and these three major terrorist incidents in just the past several months are something that a lot of londoners, a lot of british people are going to be attuned to when they go into the voting booth. that's something that the opposition has really been assailing theresa may and her ruling conservative party about. their terrorism policy. their immigration policy. their policing policy. and all of this is really coming to a head just next thursday. this terror attack is going to really interject a new and very confusing element into an election that was already very complex, and becoming closer by the day. ali? >> matt bradley, great coverage. i'm sorry that we have to hear so much from you on your

developing expertise as a terrorist reporter. matt bradley in the streets of london for us. we're going to take a quick break. our special coverage of the terror attack in london continues after this. you're watching msnbc. i'm ali vel shi. you could start your search at the all-new carfax.com that might help. show me the carfax? now the car you want and the history you need are easy to find. show me used minivans with no reported accidents. boom. love it. [struggles] show me the carfax. start your used car search and get free carfax reports at the all-new carfax.com. welcome to holiday inn! ♪ ♪

whether for big meetings or little getaways, there are always smiles ahead at holiday inn. ♪ it's happening, it's happening! in the modern world, you can control just about anything with an app. your son is turning on all the lights again! and with the esurance mobile app, you can do the same thing with your car insurance. like access your id card, file a claim, or manage your policy. it's so easy it's almost scary. let's get outta here! that's auto and home insurance for the modern world. esurance. an allstate company. click or call. getting heartburn doesn't mean i means i take rolaids®. rolaids® goes to work instantly neutralizing 44% more acid than tums® for fast, powerful relief of your worst heartburn. i trust my rolaids®. r-o-l-a-i-d-s spells relief. there's nothing more than my vacation.me

so when i need to book a hotel, i want someone who makes it easy. booking.com gets it. and with a book now, pay later feature, i don't have to pay for anything when i book. visit booking.com. booking.yeah.

i'm ali velshi. six civilians and three attackers have been killed in what they are describing as a protracted terrorist incident in central london. police report just after 10:00 p.m. local time, 5:00 p.m. eastern time, a white van traveling south on london bridge veered off the road and struck several passing pedestrians. police believe that three attackers then emerged from the van with knives and began stabbing people in nearby borough market. that's a busy area with bars and restaurants. armed police responded to the scene and shot and killed three suspects