terrorist attack outside a London mosque

“He turned left into the alleyway, and he just drove at people,” eyewitness Abdiqadir Warra said. “Some of them he took a few metres. A man was inside in the van, I saw with my eye, and the old man was also on the ground, and I see some people were also injured. Some of them were very bad.” Locals then pounced on the driver and pinned him down while waiting for the police to arrive. “The man, he tried to escape… but they caught the driver,” Warra said. Eyewitness Khalid Amin told BBC television that the van turned deliberately left and “just hit the people”. One man was trapped under the van and people tried to lift up the vehicle to free him. Amin said that when people seized the driver, “he was shouting: ‘All Muslims, I want to kill all Muslims.’ Literally, he said that. Word by word.” Police said that one man had been arrested at the scene and that no further suspects had been identified. – ‘It’s a terrorist attack’ – Another eyewitness, who gave his name as Athman, said: “People were screaming: ‘It’s a terrorist attack, it’s an attack, this guy attacked us’, and I had to run back and tried to save people who were still alive and giving water, helping the police. “While he was in the police van he was waving for victory, he was very happy. “He chose the time and he chose the place and he chose his target. So, it’s the holy month of Ramadan. “The time, he was planning for it, the target, he was planning for it, and the place — outside a mosque.” Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque, called for Prime Minister Theresa May’s government to take action. The incident came after two terror attacks in London in the past three months involving vehicles ploughing into crowds of people, as well as the suicide bombing attack at a Manchester pop concert in May. “People now have a big question about safety in London after all these terrorist attacks, and we want to assure them that they are safe, and that’s why we want to work with the police,” Kozbar said. “People feel unsafe because after the terrorist attacks of London, Manchester, the increase of Islamophobia and hate crimes,” he added. “This is very worrying to the Muslim community.” Several bunches of flowers had been deposited outside the mosque as commuters went to work on Monday morning.

Tawfiq al-Qasimi, the leader of the Muslim Welfare House, told Al Jazeera, the imam of the Finsbury Park mosque saved the suspect, once under citizen’s arrest from “being killed possibly” by an angry crowd.
Describing Imam Mohamed Mahmoud as a “hero”, Qasimi said: “People started hitting him hard and Mohamed took so many punches because he was protecting the guy until the police arrived”.
Qasimi blamed Islamophobia for the attack, saying: “This guy was extreme right wing, trying to kill Muslims because they are Muslims. This is a clear hate crime. We ask the government to do more to protect us Muslims.”

Witnesses reported seeing two other men who had been inside the van run away, but police are yet to confirm if others were involved in the attack. A 48-year-old man was arrested, police said.
The suspect, who was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, waved to the crowd as he was led away. The van involved in the attack is marked with the livery of the hire company, which is based on an industrial estate just outside the Welsh city of Cardiff.
Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque, called the incident a "cowardly attack" on worshippers.
London has seen several deadly terrorist attacks in recent months.
Monday's attack came less than a month after a van crashed into a crowd of pedestrians on London Bridge followed by knifing attacks that left eight people dead and many others injured. That attack came in the wake of a suicide bombing outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester last month that killed 22.
A separate vehicle ramming attack in March on Westminster Bridge left four dead including the suspect.