Horror on the streets of London as two attackers armed with machetes and knives attacked and beheaded a British Soldier before police arrived to gun them down.  Links to gruesome images and video follow the click.

This happened near a Royal Artillery barracks in Woolwich in London’s south-east.  The Local MP Nick Raynsford says the soldier was returning to the barracks after a day out, when the two men attacked.  Witnessed have described them as yelling out as the set upon the soldier with knives, screaming “Allahu Akbar” as they decapitate him.

And then it gets weird.  One of the men, his hands covered with the soldier’s blood, then attempts to justify the apparently unprovoked murder to a witness who records it all on a cellphone video.  They make no attempt to get away or even stray too far from the scene.  The police show up and the suspects turn on them, forcing police to shoot them.  Each man was wounded and placed under arrest.

Authorities are now working out the identities of the men and their origin. They do say it was an act of Islamist terrorism, but haven’t determined if the suspects acted on their own or were part of a larger plot.