Jihaders start to really annoy the Brits. What will they do?

London terror attack: what we know so far

• Seven people have been killed and dozens injured during attacks in two closely connected areas of London on Saturday night. The police are treating the attacks as terrorist incidents.

• Police were called when a white rental van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge at about 10.08pm Saturday night. The van continued on to nearby Borough Market where three attackers emerged and carried out multiple stabbings in pubs and restaurants.

• Armed police arrived and shot the attackers dead within 8 minutes of being alerted. The attackers were armed with knives and wore what turned out to be fake suicide vests.

• There were multiple casualties in addition to the deaths, with London Ambulance Service saying at least 48 people have been taken to five hospitals in the capital. The NHS said 21 are in a critical condition.

London terror attack: Theresa May vows to battle 'Islamist extremism'

British Prime Minister Theresa May claimed there was "too much tolerance" of Islamist extremism in the UK as she vowed a clampdown in the wake of the third terror attack to hit the UK this year.

Seven people died and 48 were injured when three masked men drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before leaping out and launching a stabbing spree in nearby bars and restaurants.

Police said the three attackers, wearing fake suicide belts to sow further panic, were shot dead within eight minutes of police receiving the first emergency call just after 10 p.m. local time. 

Authorities announced 12 arrests on Sunday.

Speaking in Downing Street five days before the UK general election, May described the latest attack as "brutal" and said extremism had to be defeated. 

"We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are," she said. 

"Enough is enough."

People are prone to forget three things.

First, we can no more prevent terrorism than feminists can end rape and take back the night.

Second, terrorists killing a few people at a time, even a few dozens, or even occasionally a thousand or so, do not and cannot constitute "an existential threat" or "a threat to our way of life".

Third, the rule in general is that Western nations, especially the US, can be counted on to wildly overreact to terrorist attacks.

The two clearest examples were the manhunt for the Boston Bombers and the subsequent investigation, and the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan by GW Bush in response to the events of 9/11/2001.