U.K. Soldier's Beheading Echoes Earlier Terrorist Attacks

Military personnel have been targeted before

The victim of Wednesday's attack in southeast London is believed to be a serving soldier, based at a barracks in Woolwich, Nick Raynsford, a member of Parliament, told CNN.

Details are still emerging of the attack, which is being treated by the UK government as suspected terrorism, but in recent years previous Islamist plots have targeted British soldiers on home soil.

In 2007 four men were imprisoned over a plot to kidnap and kill a British Muslim soldier on leave and behead him in a Birmingham garage. The group's ringleader Parviz Khan intended to behead the soldier "like a pig" and release footage of the killing on the internet.