Another terrorist turns a vehicle into an weapon in London, driving into a crowd of worshipers just leaving a prayer service. If this attack had happened near the steps of St. Paul’s, it would likely be dominating international news on Monday. But this time it was Muslims just outside a north London mosque who came under attack.
Witnesses said the driver of the vehicle was heard shouting that he wanted to kill Muslims.
An elderly man apparently collapsed outside the mosque. As he was being examined, the terrorist drove his van directly into the crowd of people who had gathered around the man in concern. At least ten people were injured. 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.
The van later swerved across the sidewalk and crashed. Through it all, the terrorist remained consistent in his goals.
When the driver of the van jumped out of the vehicle and tried to run "I tackled him on the floor until the police came," Aidroos told the BBC. "When he was running, he said 'I want to kill more people, I want to kill more Muslims,'" he said.
"When I got him on the ground, I said, 'Why are you doing this?' He said, 'I want to kill more Muslims.'"
Meanwhile, in the US, another attacker accomplished just that.
According to accounts from police and a mosque official, a group of four or five teens were walking back from breakfast at IHOP early Sunday when they were confronted by a motorist. All but one of the teens ran to the mosque, where the group reported that the girl had been left behind, according to Deputy Aleksandra Kowalski, a spokeswoman for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office.
That one remaining teen was a 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen. She was abducted, beaten to death with a metal baseball bat, and her body left in a pond.
Fairfax County police identified the man charged with murder in her death as Darwin Martinez Torres of Sterling. On Monday, they did not release any explanation as to why they weren’t investigating the murder as a hate crime.
Why the abduction and brutal murder of a Muslim teen, taken just outside a mosque during Ramadan, is not being investigated as a hate crime would be interesting to know.
The London incident is at least getting the “potentially” treatment. As in …
Basu said that police were keeping an "open mind" on the motivations behind the attack, but "given the methodology and given what was occurring and what's happened, the tragic incidents across the country, this had all the hallmarks of a terrorist incident."
But neither incident is getting the kind of media attention or political fury of previous attacks. Neither has merited a presidential tweet.