A man from Cardiff is believed to be responsible for a terrorist attack that left one person dead and 11 injured when a van he was driving ploughed into a group of worshippers near a mosque in north London.
Darren Osborne, 47, is alleged to have shouted “I want to kill all Muslims – I did my bit” after the hired van hit a crowd that had gathered to help an elderly man who had collapsed near a mosque.
The Met said a 47-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism including murder and attempted murder in the immediate aftermath of the incident, which occurred near two mosques in Finsbury Park after late prayers in the small hours of Monday morning.
On Monday neighbours in Pentwyn, where Osborne had lived for several years, described him as “aggressive” and “strange”. They said that over the weekend he told a 10-year old Muslim neighbour he was an “inbred” and had been thrown out of a local pub for getting drunk “cursing Muslims and saying he would do some damage”.
Witnesses to the attack said it had occurred after a small crowd had gathered around a man who had collapsed outside the Muslim Welfare House near the Finsbury Park mosque, when the van ploughed into them at around 12.20am.
One man, who did not want to give his name, said he and his friends had stopped to help the “elderly man” who was lying on the ground.
“In seconds this terrible thing happened,” he said. “Within a minute a van with speed turned to where we were and ran over the man who was laying on the floor and the people around him. Around eight or 10 people got injured, some of them seriously. Thank God I’m safe but my friends got injured.”
Onlookers said the driver then got out of the van and shouted “I want to kill all Muslims” before he was wrestled to the ground.
Abdikadar Warfa said he was one of those who caught hold of the van driver, who tried to kick and punch people as he tried to escape. “He tried to run away, he tried to escape. Some people were hitting him. He was fighting to run away.”
The prime minister, Theresa May, said that the “hatred and evil” seen in the attack would never succeed and visited the scene at lunchtime on Monday. The prime minister said the attack on Muslims was “every bit as insidious and destructive to our values and our way of life” as the recent string of attacks apparently motivated by Islamist extremism, adding: “We will stop at nothing to defeat it.”
Mohammed Mahmoud, an imam at the Muslim Welfare House, arrived moments later and was praised for stopping anybody attacking the suspect. “By God’s grace we managed to surround him and protect him from any harm,” Mahmoud said at a press conference on Monday afternoon. “We stopped all forms of attack and abuse towards him that were coming from every angle.”
Mahmoud said he and others managed to flag down a passing police van. “We told them the situation and said there’s a mob attempting to hurt him. If you don’t take him, God forbid, he might be seriously hurt.”
The man who had collapsed had come round moments before the van ploughed into the crowd. He died at the scene and was later named as 51-year-old Makram Ali. Mahmoud said: “People came to tend to him. They brought him a chair. He regained consciousness and then, as he regained consciousness, the van drove perpendicular to Seven Sisters Road.”
The attack took place in the constituency of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who spent much of the day at the mosque. He said the targeting of the Muslim community at the height of Ramadan had shocked the community. “A lot of the time people are saying Islamophobia isn’t real. But this time it’s actually killed someone and injured others,” he said. “There are kids who grew up (watching this) on TV and never expected it to happen in their own backyard.”
The Muslim Council of Britain said the attack was the most violent incident in a wave of Islamophobic attacks to hit Muslim communities over the past few months and called for “transformative action ... to tackle not only this incident but the hugely worrying growth in Islamophobia”.
Writing in the Guardian the home secretary, Amber Rudd, said the scale of policing operations to protect and reassure Muslim communities across the country has been enhanced as a result of the attack and would continue “for as long as necessary”.
She said British Muslims had been quick to show solidarity and support victims of other attacks in recent weeks and it was “now time to extend the same hand of friendship to them. Other faiths have already been quick to express their shock and lend their support”.
The home secretary said that she had been saddened to see suggestions that this “cowardly crime” was not being dealt with in the same way as the Westminster Bridge, Manchester or London Bridge attacks. “Let there be no doubt this attack is every bit as horrifying as the others we have seen. Our grief is no less raw.” And she pledged to be tough on terrorism “wherever it strikes” and emphasised that she would not shy away from tackling the “stark figure” that more than half of victims of religious hate attacks were Muslims.
The suspect is believed to have links to the extreme right, according to investigators. They said they extent is not clear at this stage but the finding cemented the view this should be classed as a hate crime.
The man’s mental health is also being explored by the counter-terrorism investigation which is trying to establish if the attack was premeditated or opportunistic.
Police are also concerned about the possibility of copycat incidents or retaliation for an attack on Muslim targets.
London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, spent much of the day at the scene of the attack. Writing in the Guardian he said London had been through “an incredibly difficult few weeks … I know Londoners will remain strong and united. While we have been filled with great sorrow and anger at the unnecessary loss of innocent lives, we have also shown, time and again, our great resolve not to allow those who seek to divide us to succeed.”
