Police investigate van attack near London mosque as terrorism

In an attack that British Muslims say was aimed directly at them, a man plowed a van into a crowd of Muslim worshipers outside a north London mosque early Monday, injuring 10 people. London police are investigating it as a terrorist incident.

Police said another man died at the scene, although he was receiving first aid at the time and it wasn’t clear if he died as a result of the attack or something else.

British Prime Minister Theresa May condemned the attack “on innocent people” and declared that Britain would stop at nothing to defeat extremism.

“Hatred and evil of this kind will never succeed,” she said in a televised statement.

Police said the 48-year-old white man who was driving the van that hit those leaving evening prayers at the Finsbury Park Mosque has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. Police have not released his identity. He has been taken to a hospital as a precaution.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said police are investigating whether the death of the man getting first aid was a direct result of the attack, but it was too early to say for sure.

The crash occurred at a time when the multiethnic neighborhood was crowded with Muslims leaving the mosque after Ramadan prayers. Muslim leaders called it a hate crime and asked the public to stay calm.

Police said the driver was detained by the crowd until police arrived.

The crash occurred shortly after midnight, when police received reports of a collision between a van and pedestrians. Police said eight of the injured were hospitalized; the other two had minor injuries and were treated at the scene.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing police give emergency heart massage to at least one of the injured.

A leader of the Muslim Council of Britain called for extra security at mosques in light of the apparent attack. The group’s general secretary, Harun Khan, described the incident as a hate crime against Muslims.

“During the night, ordinary British citizens were set upon while they were going about their lives, completing their night worship,” he said. “It appears from eyewitness accounts that the perpetrator was motivated by Islamophobia.”

London police — already stretched by a series of tragedies including a June 14 high-rise apartment fire in which 79 people are presumed dead and a June 3 terror attack near London Bridge that killed seven people — said they are putting more officers on the street to reassure the public. Muslim leaders called for calm.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to serve in that position, said extra police would be deployed. He called the incident a “horrific terrorist attack.”

Video filmed in the immediate aftermath showed a Caucasian man being detained by police.

Someone in the crowd yelled to others not to harm the man while he was taken into custody. The video of the crash early Monday morning was accessed by the AP.

Someone in the crowd is heard shouting, “No one touch him! No one! No one!”

The chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque said the van crash that hit worshipers was a “cowardly attack” and urged Muslims going to mosques to be vigilant.

Mohammed Kozbar said the Muslim community is “in shock.” He complained that the “mainstream media” were unwilling to call the attack a terrorist incident for many hours.

The attack on Monday hits a community already feeling targeted in the fallout from the London Bridge killings and other attacks blamed on Islamic extremists. It also came as Muslims are taking part in the holy month of Ramadan.

“While this appears to be an attack on a particular community, like the terrible attacks in Manchester, Westminster and London Bridge, it is also an assault on all our shared values of tolerance, freedom and respect,” Khan said. “The situation is still unfolding and I urge all Londoners to remain calm and vigilant.”

British security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official policy, said hate crimes directed at Muslims have increased nearly five-fold in the wake of several attacks in Britain.

Counter-terror officials said they were closely monitoring terror activity linked to far-right groups but most of the recent attacks have been traced to individuals rather than groups.

Sky News reported that the mosque’s imam prevented the crowd from beating the attacker until police arrived.

Toufik Kacimi, chief executive of the Muslim Welfare House, speaking to Sky News, said the attack clearly targeted Muslims leaving evening prayers during Ramadan.

“We have a witness saying that the guy who did what he did, the driver of the van, said ‘I did my bit,’ which means he’s not mentally ill,” Kacimi said. “This person was conscious. He did what he did deliberately to hit and kill as many Muslims as possible, so he is a terrorist.”

But the attack also laid bare the frustrations of a community who believe they’ve been unfairly equated with extremists who have carried out atrocities in the name of Islam. Early police caution about declaring the incident to be terrorist-related was interpreted by the community as discriminatory.

May attempted to counter that feeling in her speech, declaring that police arrived at the scene within one minute, and that a terror attack was declared in eight minutes.

Ali Habib, a 23-year-old student, said residents are angry that the mosque attack hasn’t been portrayed in the same light as the other attacks across the country.

“There has been an outpouring of sympathy for all for the recent terror attacks but hardly a whisper on this attack,” he said. “People are both scared and angry. Parents are scared to send their children to evening prayers. I don’t think people understand how much these attacks affect all of us.”

Finsbury Park Mosque was associated with extremist ideology for several years after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, but it was shut down and reorganized. It has not been associated with radical views for more than a decade.

It is located a short walk away from Emirates Stadium, home of the Arsenal football club in north London.

May said she would chair an emergency security Cabinet session Monday. She said her thoughts were with the injured, their loved ones and emergency officials who responded to the incident.

Britain’s terrorist alert has been set at “severe,” meaning an attack is highly likely.

Earlier this month on London Bridge, Islamic extremists used a vehicle and then knives to kill eight people and wound many others on the bridge and in the popular nearby Borough Market area. The three Islamic extremists who carried out the attack were killed by police.

In March, a man plowed a rented SUV into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing four people before stabbing a police officer outside Parliament.

Manchester was also hit on May 22 when a suicide bomber killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert.

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UPDATES:

6/19, 6:07 a.m.: This article was updated throughout with additional reaction from British officials and Muslim leaders.

9:45 p.m.: This article was updated with more details and quotes from the scene.

9:10 p.m.: This article was updated with details of the casualties, the Counter Terrorism Command investigating.

7:10 p.m.: This article was updated with a comment from the Muslim Council, more background on the mosque and information about an attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

6:25 p.m.: This article was updated with a report that the incident happened near a mosque and other details.

This article was originally published at 5:30 p.m.