Security guard disarms attacker after girl and woman stabbed in central London

By Christian Edwards, CNN

London (CNN) — A security guard said he tried to save an 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman as they were attacked by a man wielding a knife in London’s Leicester Square, one of the busiest tourist destinations in the English capital.

London’s Westminster Police said a man, believed to be the only suspect, had been arrested after the attack on Monday morning.

The guard, who gave his name as Abdullah, 29, told PA Media he was working at a nearby tea shop in the square when he “heard a scream” and saw the women being attacked by a man who appeared to be in his thirties.

“I jumped on him, held the hand in which he was (carrying) a knife, and just put him down on the floor and just held him and took the knife away from him,” Abdullah said.

Two other people came to help him hold the attacker down for “maybe three to four minutes,” he said, before police arrived and took him into custody.

Abdullah said he and the two others had given first aid to the girl before police took over.

“I just saw a kid getting stabbed and I just tried to save her. It’s my duty to just save them,” he said.

UK police remain on high alert after days of far-right riots earlier this month, spurred by disinformation around a deadly stabbing attack in the north of England.

The London Ambulance Service said it was called to the scene at around 11.36 a.m. Monday morning (6.36 a.m. ET), and that paramedics had taken the victims to a major trauma center.

In a later update, Westminster Police said that the 11-year-old girl will require hospital treatment but her injuries are not life-threatening, and that the second victim suffered more minor injuries.

“At this stage, there is no suggestion that the incident is terror-related,” it said.

In a major report last month, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) warned that violence against women and girls in England and Wales had reached “epidemic levels.”

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