Mourning in London
People take part in a vigil at Finsbury Park in north London, where a vehicle struck pedestrians near a mosque early Monday morning.
LONDON — British authorities and Islamic leaders moved swiftly to ease concerns in the Muslim community after a man plowed a van into a crowd of worshipers outside a north London mosque early Monday, injuring at least nine people.
British media named the suspect as Darren Osborne, a 47-year-old father of four who was living in Cardiff, Wales. British Security Minister Ben Wallace said Osborne was not known to authorities prior to the attack.
Police are treating the incident as a terror attack.
One man died at the scene, although he had been receiving first aid at the time, and it wasn’t clear if he died as a result of the attack or something else.
The Metropolitan Police Service, already stretched by its investigations of the three Islamistinspired attacks that occurred over the past three months and a highrise apartment fire believed to have killed 79 people, announced it was putting extra patrols on the streets to protect the public.
Police will assess the security of mosques and provide any additional resources needed ahead of celebrations marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, Prime Minister Theresa May announced.
“This was an attack on Muslims near their place of worship,” she said in a televised address. “And like all terrorism, in whatever form, it shares the same fundamental goal. It seeks to drive us apart — and to break the precious bonds of solidarity and citizenship that we share in this country. We will not let this happen.”
Police said the attacker who drove the van has been arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism, including murder and attempted murder.
The attack occurred outside the Muslim Welfare House, a small mosque with about 200 congregants. Nearby, evening prayer services had just concluded at the larger Finsbury Park Mosque, which had been associated with extremist ideology for several years after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. After those attacks, the mosque was shut down and reorganized and has not been associated with radical views for more than a decade.
Britain’s terror alert level is at “severe,” meaning security officials believe an attack is highly likely, and a series of extremist attacks have struck across the country in the last few months.