The Morning Briefing: London Attack, U.S. Shoots Down Syrian Jet, Caesar Interrupted

Happy Monday Morning.

Here’s what is on President Trump’s agenda today:

In the morning, President Donald J. Trump will receive his daily intelligence briefing.
The President and First Lady Melania Trump will then welcome President Juan Carlos Varela and Mrs. Varela of Panama.
Later in the morning, the President will meet with President Varela.
The President will then have a working luncheon with President Varela.
In the afternoon, the President will participate in an American Technology Council roundtable and reception.

London: truck plows into crowd leaving one dead, 10 injured

Late last night in London, a white truck veered into worshipers leaving late-night Ramadan prayers. A 48-year-old man has been arrested. Ten people were hurt and one was fatally injured.

Prime Minister Theresa May said police were treating it “as a potential terrorist attack”.

Eyewitness Abdul Rahman said the driver said he wanted to “kill all Muslims”.

Mr Rahman told the BBC he struck the man and helped subdue him.

“When the guy came out from his van he wanted to escape, run away and he was saying ‘I want to kill Muslims. ‘I want to kill Muslims.’

“I hit him on his stomach… and then me and the other guys… we held him to the ground until he couldn’t move. We stopped him until the police came.”

The Muslim Council blamed the attack on Islamophobia.

Harun Khan, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain said: “Over the past weeks and months, Muslims have endured many incidents of Islamophobia, and this is the most violent manifestation to date.

“We expect the authorities to increase security outside mosques as a matter of urgency.”

Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, said, “We don’t yet know the full details, but this was clearly a deliberate attack on innocent Londoners, many of whom were finishing prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.

“While this appears to be an attack on a particular community, like the terrible attacks in Manchester, Westminster and London Bridge it is also an assault on all our shared values of tolerance, freedom and respect.”

We do not have the identity of or any information about the suspect.

Developing…

Pentagon: U.S. shoots down Syrian jet

A Syrian fighter jet was shot down by a U.S. aircraft, according to the Pentagon. The airstrike came after the Syrians bombed U.S.-backed fighters in northern Syria.

The Pentagon said the downing of the aircraft came hours after Syrian loyalist forces attacked U.S.-backed fighters, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, in the village of Ja’Din, southwest of Raqqa. The rare attack was the first time a U.S. jet has shot down a manned hostile aircraft in more than a decade, and it signaled the United States’ sharply intensifying role in Syria’s war.

The incident is the fourth time within a month that the U.S. military has attacked pro-Syrian government forces.

The Syrian military released a statement about the attack. “The attack stresses coordination between the US and ISIS, and it reveals the evil intentions of the US in administrating terrorism and investing it to pass the US-Zionist project in the region,” the Syrian statement read.

The U.S. attempted to deescalate the situation by contacting the Russians, Syria’s main ally. U.S. jets flew close to the ground “as a show of force” to stop the fighting, but hours later a Syrian jet continued to attack U.S.-backed forces.

After the hailing attempts, a U.S. F/A-18 shot down the Syrian aircraft “in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of coalition partnered forces,” the Pentagon said.

Thomas rejected the Syrian government’s claims that the aircraft was bombing the Islamic State, adding that Ja’Din is controlled by Syrian Democratic Forces and that the militant group had not been in the area for some time.

This is the fourth time within a month that the U.S. has attacked pro-Syrian government forces.

Julius Caesar performance interrupted by protestors

Two protestors interrupted the final performance of the Public Theater’s Trump-version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Brooklyn man Jovanni Valle, 26, jumped on stage during the Shakespeare play’s first act and shouted “Liberal hate kills” and “Goebbels would be proud,” referring to Adolf Hitler’s minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany. Valle was quickly nabbed by security.

About 20 minutes later, 28-year-old Salvatore Cipolla, of Oceanside, climbed on stage, also shouting “Goebbels would be proud.”

The play was also interrupted on Friday when Laura Loomer stormed the stage and shouted: “Stop the normalization of political violence against the right!”

The production has garnered attention because the Julius Caesar character is depicted as President Trump and the audience cheers when Trump is assassinated. Does the audience know the rest of the story?

Watch college students talk about Islamic terrorism: “acceptance and rehabilitation”