ISIS claims responsibility for London Bridge attack

The Islamic State officially claimed responsibility for Friday’s terror attack in London.

A statement Saturday from its news agency Amaq was translated and posted to Twitter by Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times.

Attacker Usman Khan — who recently was released from prison after serving six years for plotting to blow up the London Stock Exchange — was acting in its name, the terror group said.

Khan “carried out the attack in response to calls to target the nationals of Coalition countries,” the ISIS statement said.

Two people were stabbed to death and several others injured before police shot Khan dead on the London Bridge.

According to Ms. Callimachi, the ISIS statement does not say Khan was directly dispatched by the group, but, she maintained, this is a distinction without a difference.

“For years, we have been conditioned to think that a ’directed’ attack is the real deal and an ’inspired’ one is not. But that distinction has been eroded by ISIS, which succeeded in mobilizing dozens of people to do deadly acts through its propaganda alone. Some of the deadliest attacks in the West linked to ISIS were ’only inspired’ by the group, including Omar Mateen’s killing spree at Pulse nightclub in Orlando which claimed 49 lives and the Nice truck ramming which killed 87,” she wrote over two tweets.