[Breaking: British police identify third London Bridge attacker as Italian with Moroccan family ties]

LONDON — Police on Tuesday were facing questions over how one of the London Bridge attackers slipped through the net as the British Prime Minister Theresa May continued to come under attack over police funding cuts.

At least one of the attackers — Khuram Shazad Butt — who killed seven people during a rampage through central London had been been on the radar of security services.

On Tuesday, Italian media named the third attacker as Moroccan-Italian Youssef Zaghba. According to the newspaper Corriere della Sera, Zaghba was stopped in Italy last year trying to go to Syria. London police have not confirmed the name. British police later confirmed the report.

Boris Johnson, Britain’s foreign secretary, said that the police and security services will have questions to answer about why Butt was not stopped.

“People are going to look at the front pages today and they’re going to say ‘how on earth could we have let this guy or possibly more through the net? What happened?” he told Sky News.

The admission that at least one of the London Bridge attackers was known to authorities has fueled a security debate already underway in Britain as the country counts down to an unpredictable election on Thursday.

[London, ‘reeling’? The city that weathered Nazi bombs pushes back against fear.]

London Mayor Sadiq Khan criticized the cuts to the police under the Conservative-led government and argued that London could lose frontline police officers if May’s Conservative Party triumphs in the election.

The Labour mayor told the BBC that the responsibility for the bloodshed lies with the attackers but said said that “there’s no doubt that fewer police officers means we are in more danger.”

When asked if the U.K. should rescind the offer of a state visit to President Trump following Trump’s recent criticisms of Khan, the London mayor told BBC that he had not changed his view that a state visit was inappropriate.

In a separate appearance on ITV, Khan also accused President Trump of making “ignorant comments about Muslims,” but he insisted he did not want to engage in a war of words with Trump.

“We are not kids in playground. He’s the president of the United States. I’m too busy to respond to his tweets. Isn’t he busy?”

At 11 a.m., the nation held a minute’s silence to remember all of those affected by the terror attack.

The two main candidates for prime minister — the incumbent, May, and the challenger, Jeremy Corbyn — traded barbs Monday over how security services can better protect the public after three mass-casualty attacks in as many months. 

May, a Conservative, said that authorities will need greater powers to crack down on extremism and that Corbyn had blocked such efforts. Corbyn, the far-left leader of the opposition Labour Party, accused May of starving police and other security services of personnel and funds. 

Both agreed that the country will have to make changes as security services — which for years successfully thwarted attacks on British soil — struggle to confront a threat that is growing in scale and tempo. 

The agencies say they have disrupted 18 plots since 2013, including five in recent months.

The identities of the two attackers announced Monday fit a pattern. Much like the assailants in the two earlier attacks, these men had British roots and were peripheral to the focus of security agencies.

[London attack spawns political controversy as May and Corbyn trade barbs ahead of vote]

London’s Metropolitan Police identified the assailants as 27-year-old Butt, a British citizen who was born in Pakistan, and 30-year-old Rachid Redouane, who had claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan. 

Both lived in the Barking area of east London, only a half-hour’s drive from London Bridge and Borough Market — the adjacent areas where victims were targeted Saturday night.

Butt had been investigated in 2015, was known by neighbors to be an extremist and was featured last year in a documentary on Britain’s Channel 4 called “The Jihadis Next Door.” 

But police said that they had no warning of a plot and that their investigation of Butt had been shelved.

Redouane had not been known to the security agencies.

Police say they have 500 ongoing terrorism investigations and are keeping tabs on 3,000 individuals suspected of extremism. Investigations involving known plots, authorities say, take up the bulk of the security services’ resources.

[Trump reacts to London terror by stoking fear and renewing feud with mayor]

The Islamic State claimed Sunday to have been behind the attack. But experts have cast doubt, noting that the group did not provide any details to prove its involvement. Similar claims in the past have been shown to be unreliable. 

All three assailants in Saturday’s attack were fatally shot by police within eight minutes of the first emergency calls.

Saturday night’s attack injured dozens, including four police officers. Eighteen people remain in critical condition.

Christine Archibald, 30, a Canadian from the western province of British Columbia, was the first victim of the attack to be named. The 30-year-old had worked at a homeless shelter in Calgary before moving to Europe to live with her fiance.

“Please honor her by making your community a better place. Volunteer your time and labor or donate to a homeless shelter. Tell them Chrissy sent you,” her family said in a statement.

Read more

Trump was terrorized by the London attack while Britain stood firm

‘I saw blinding white headlights. … It hit directly to the right of me.’

Brits gather to see Ariana Grande again — this time in defiance

The London attackers chose an especially popular site

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news