Armed police officers man a cordon in Finsbury Park, north London, where a vehicle struck pedestrians in north London Monday, June 19, 2017. Kacimi said when he did so, the 48-year-old driver said to him: “I’ve done my bit”.
Mahmoud says “By God’s grace, we were able to protect him from harm”.
Worshippers leaving a London mosque just after midnight on Monday were helping an unwell elderly man when a van deliberately targeted them, eyewitnesses said, driven by an attacker who shouted: “I want to kill all Muslims“.
This is being treated as a terrorist incident and is being investigated by the counter terrorism command.
“There’ll be a zero tolerance toward hate crime”, Mr Khan said. Hate crimes directed at Muslims have increased almost five-fold, according to British security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official policy.
Witnesses said that an imam from the mosque protected the driver of the van from angry members of the public until the police could arrive. We have one person who has died and as you are aware a man has been arrested.
Several people were injured in north London early on Monday when a van rammed into worshippers leaving a mosque, witnesses said, in what British police described as a “major incident”. The elderly man died at the scene, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether he received additional injuries from the van or if his medical treatment was cut short by the incident.
“We found that a group of people quickly started to collect around him, around the assailant and some tried to hit him either with kicks or punches”, imam Mohammed Mahmoud said. “I hit him on his stomach. and then me and the other guys. we held him to the ground until he couldn’t move”. Eight people were killed and many wounded on the bridge and in the nearby Borough Market area.
Police have not yet determined whether the fatality was a result of the van attack. “The situation is still unfolding and I urge all Londoners to remain calm and vigilant”.
Many at the mosque, and on social media, criticized the police and the media for what they saw as a too-slow decision to label the mosque attack as terror.
Penshaw Monument will be lit up in red, white and blue tonight after last night’s terror attack near Finsbury Park Mosque.
The attack outside the Muslim Welfare House comes on the heels of two recent attacks in London in which vehicles have also been used as weapons, both on bridges over the Thames River.