A police forensics investigator, center, approached a crime scene where one man was killed on Wednesday in London.
LONDON — Britain’s top security officials held an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening, after police officers shot two men who were suspected of killing what some reports identified as British soldier on a street in southeast London.
Prime Minister David Cameron said there was a “strong indication” that the attack was a terrorist act, the BBC reported. ITV News showed images of a man with bloodied hands, carrying a large kitchen knife and a cleaver, saying, “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.”
In a statement, Home Secretary Theresa May said that a man had been “brutally murdered” in what she described as a “sickening and barbaric attack.”
Mr. Cameron’s office said that he had asked Ms. May to hold a meeting of the COBR emergency committee, often referred to as Cobra, which coordinates the reaction to crises and episodes of terrorism.
British news media quoted Nick Raynsford, the local member of Parliament, as saying that the dead man was a soldier at a nearby barracks, although that information was not confirmed by the British authorities.
In a statement, Simon Letchford, a police commander, said that officers were called in the early afternoon to John Wilson Street in Woolwich, where one man was being assaulted by two other men wielding knives and possibly a gun.
“A number of weapons were reportedly being used in the attack, and this included reports of a firearm,” Mr. Letchford said.
“Shortly afterwards firearms officers arrived at the scene,” he said. “On their arrival at the scene they found a man, who was later pronounced dead.”
“Two men, who we believe from early reports to have been carrying weapons, were shot by police. They were taken to separate London hospitals; they are receiving treatment for their injuries,” Mr. Letchford said.
In a Twitter post, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said the attack was a “sickening deluded and unforgivable act of violence.”
