Londoners hold vigil for attack victims
LONDON: Londoners bearing flowers and messages of solidarity gathered on Monday at the spot where a man ploughed a van into Muslims leaving prayers at a mosque, the fourth terror strike in Britain in four months.
Eleven people were injured in the attack, which took place early Monday near Finsbury Park mosque, north London, raising fears of retaliation against Muslims after recent assaults by Islamic extremists.
One elderly man, who had collapsed just before the incident, was pronounced dead at the scene, but it is not yet known whether his death was directly linked to the van assault.
Among the roughly 100 people at the vigil, some carried signs reading “United Against All Terror”.
“One of the things that all these terrorists share is a perverse ideology that wants to fuel division and divide our communities. We’re not going to let them,” said Mayor Sadiq Khan, speaking after prayers at the Muslim Welfare House on Monday evening.
Flowers were left at the scene where hours earlier the 47-year-old van driver was pinned down by locals and shielded from violence by an imam, before being detained by police. The driver was later arrested on suspicion of “the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism including murder and attempted murder”, the police said.
The suspect was named by British media as Darren Osborne, 47, a father-of-four, who lived in the Welsh capital Cardiff.
The BBC was among other media which identified the man arrested as Mr Osborne, while London’s Metropolitan Police said it would not name the suspect until he was charged.
In a statement given to local media on behalf of his family, his nephew Ellis Osborne said: “We are massively shocked; it’s unbelievable, it still hasn’t really sunk in.
“We are devastated for the families, our hearts go out to the people who have been injured. It’s madness. It is obviously sheer madness.”
Security Minister Ben Wallace told BBC radio that the suspect was “not known to us”.
London police chief Cressida Dick said the incident was “quite clearly an attack on Muslims” and promised a stepped-up police presence near mosques as the holy month of Ramadan draws to a close.
The Finsbury Park Mosque said the van “deliberately mowed down Muslim men and women leaving late evening prayers” at the mosque and the nearby Muslim Welfare House shortly after midnight.
Eleven people were hurt, all Muslims, with nine requiring hospital treatment. Two were in a very serious condition, police said. One Algerian man was among those injured, the north African country said.
Locals pinned down the driver and the imam of the Muslim Welfare House stepped in to stop him receiving a mob beating.
France and Germany quickly condemned the attack and Egypt’s Al-Azhar institution, the leading authority in Sunni Islam, condemned it as “sinful”. “Al-Azhar affirms its total rejection of this terrorist, racist, sinful act, calling on Western countries to take all precautionary measures to limit the phenomenon of Islamophobia,” it said in a statement.
The US government and Ivanka Trump on Monday expressed sympathy while the president himself has remained silent.
The use of a vehicle to mow down pedestrians drew parallels with this month’s London Bridge attack. In that incident, three men slammed a van into pedestrians before embarking on a stabbing spree — an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. In March London was hit with another car and knife rampage, that one near parliament. It was also claimed by the IS.
This time the attacker deliberately targeted Muslims, according to the police.
“Over the past weeks and months, Muslims have endured many incidents of Islamophobia and this is the most violent manifestation to date,” said Harun Khan, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, an umbrella body.
After the London Bridge attack, the mayor’s office reported a 40% increase in racist incidents in the capital and a five-fold increase in anti-Muslim incidents.
Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque, described the attack as “cowardly”. “Our community is in shock,” he said, urging people attending prayers to remain vigilant.