Preventing the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby outside Woolwich Barracks would have been “incredibly hard”, an ex-senior intelligence officer has said.

The UK’s security services face a Commons inquiry after it was confirmed the two men arrested over his murder were known to MI5 for eight years

They are now known to be Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale.

Ex-MI6 counter-terrorism head Richard Barrett said little can be done to stop attacks that need little preparation.

His warning came as video footage, obtained by the Daily Mirror, emerged showing the moment police shot Mr Adebolajo, 28, originally of Romford, Essex, and Mr Adebowale, 22, of Greenwich, south-east London.

It shows one of the men charge at police sitting in a patrol car. He drops a knife as he is shot and falls to the ground.
Further arrests

The other man is shown aiming a gun at officers as he runs in a different direction. Police are heard firing eight shots in total at the two men.

Both the men remain under armed guard in separate London hospitals in stable conditions with non-life-threatening injuries.

Detectives are also interviewing a man and a woman at a south London police station after they were arrested on Thursday night on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.

Former MI6 officer Richard Barrett told BBC Two’s Newsnight programme he thought the two suspects “probably didn’t have any intention to commit a crime like this until relatively recently”.

“I assume that these people are probably coming out of a small group without, necessarily, any overseas connections or any other broader connections in the United Kingdom which could come to the attention of the security services more than they did,” he said.

“When does a person who expresses radical views, who joins a radical group, flip over to over to be a violent extremist?

“To find the signals, the red flags as it were, I think is enormously hard.”

While the security services must have had an indication “these guys were a problem in order to note their names”, it was “quite another thing to take invasive action to track their movements”, he added.

The BBC has uncovered its own footage of Mr Adebolajo taking part in an Islamist demonstration in April 2007 against the arrest of a man from Luton, holding a placard reading “Crusade Against Muslims”.

He is shown standing next to then-leader of the now banned al-Muhajiroun organisation, Anjem Choudary, who has said Mr Adebolajo went his own way in around 2010.

Shortly after killing Drummer Rigby on Wednesday, Mr Adebolajo, was filmed by a passer-by saying he carried out the attack because British soldiers killed Muslims every day.

Mr Choudary appeared on Newsnight on Thursday and said Mr Adebolajo had made comments that “I think not many Muslims can disagree with”.

The radical Islamist preacher was asked on several occasions by presenter Kirsty Wark whether he “abhorred” what had happened in Woolwich but he instead he was “shocked” by what had happened.

He also said: “One man killed in the street does not equate to the hundreds and thousands and millions, in fact, who’ve been slaughtered by the British and American foreign policy.”

Meanwhile, thousands of members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community are expected to gather in London to offer prayers for the dead soldier and his family and to “express solidarity against extremism”.

National president Rafiq Hayat said: “We hope that the perpetrators of this crime, that is based on a twisted and warped ideology, are brought to justice.”

And Canon Philip Miller, who will lead prayers for Drummer Rigby in his home town of Middleton, Greater Manchester, on Friday morning said: “We feel for Lee, who’s lost his life with so much ahead of him and so much potential and so much of his life to live, a brave young man like that.

“So we feel for him but we also feel for Mum and Dad and the rest of the family and what they must be going through, and we can only imagine.”

On Thursday, Drummer Rigby’s family paid tribute to “a loving son, husband, father, brother, and uncle, and a friend to many”.

They said in a statement that Drummer Rigby, who had a two-year-old son, “would do anything for anybody – he always looked after his sisters and always protected them”.

“He took a ‘big brother’ role with everyone,” they added.

“All he wanted to do from when he was a little boy, was be in the Army.

“He wanted to live life and enjoy himself. His family meant everything to him.”

A post-mortem examination was taking place on Thursday afternoon but no details have yet been released.

BBC NEWS