Soldier fighting for his life after stabbing near Army barracks

From the Telegraph  and  Kent on Line

A soldier was fighting for his life on Tuesday night after being stabbed outside an army base. The victim, understood to be wearing full uniform, was attacked by a man wearing a ski mask and armed with two kitchen knives.

Kent Police said its officers were called at around 5.55pm on Tuesday to a report of a serious assault in Sally Port Gardens, Chatham. It is close to Brompton Barracks, the headquarters of the British Army’s 1 Royal School of Military Engineering Regiment.

Police investigating the attack arrested a 24-year-old on suspicion of attempted murder.

They have not ruled out terrorism as a motive, The Telegraph understands.  Motive unclear, says Ministry of Defence

KentOnline understands the victim was living in military accommodation in the street.

A witness described seeing a man pull up on a moped before attacking the soldier.

“The attacker was going for him and stabbed him about 12 times,” he said. “This was with two kitchen knives, about nine to 10 inches long, and there were about seven of us there who witnessed it. The soldier was in uniform. He works at the barracks, lives in Sally Port Gardens and was walking home. His wife tried to pull the attacker off. [The attacker] didn’t want her though, he just wanted the soldier…”

Witnesses said they heard a “blood-curdling scream” and that at the end of the frenzied assault the attacker ran his finger across the knife and then licked it.

The witness said the attacker then rode off on the moped.

The assault will raise the spectre of the murder of Lee Rigby who was killed by two Islamist jihadi terrorists as he left his military barracks in south London in 2013.

It isn’t bound to be Islamic terrorism of course, but the man on the moped, even with his face pixelatted doesn’t look like a far-right white supremacist and the MO isn’t the usual historical practice of the IRA. Time will tell.