London mosque terror attack: Witnesses describe 'horrible' moment van ploughed into pedestrians

Witnesses have described the "horrible" moment a van was "deliberately" driven into pedestrians near a north London mosque.

One man died after the driver, described as a large white man, targeted people near the Finsbury Park Mosque in the early hours of Monday morning.

The suspect, a 48-year-old who was detained by members of the public at the scene, shouted "I'm going to kill Muslims", according to witnesses.

Toufic Kacimi, from the Muslim Welfare House, told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "There was a poorly man who just fell down. It was a very hot day.

"The crowd was just trying to give him assistance. All of a sudden a van came and drove through at a very, very high speed."

He added: "There is no way this thing didn't happen deliberately. It definitely happened deliberately and the guy knew what he was doing."

Another witness, Abdikadar Warfa, said he helped to detain the suspect while his friends helped victims.

"I saw a man underneath the van. He was bleeding. My friend said he had to lift the van, I was busy with a man who tried to escape. My friend said he said some words, but I didn't hear it," he said.

"They (people who were hit) were mostly young. They are very bad. I tried to stop him (the suspect), some people were hitting him but I said stop him and keep him until the police came.

"He was trying to run away but people overpowered him. He was fighting to run away."

Describing the "horrible moment" the van mounted the pavement before ploughing into pedestrians, another man, who chose to not give his name, told Good Morning Britain: "We saw a lot of people coming out of the mosque, walking down Seven Sisters road.

"After that we saw the van drive from the middle to the left-hand side onto the pavement where people were just walking.

"(There were) screeching tyres and people just screaming. At first I thought it was just an accident. But after that I heard people just screaming "terrorist attack, terrorist attack.

"Five or six people were on the ground bleeding, people who couldn't breath.

"I saw the driver come out of the van and start running and people ran after him, caught him and then they called the police and they came straight away."

Another man added: "He just attacked everybody. He just smashed everyone and he was going on top of them and you see people lying on the floor.

"One was injured and screaming 'my back, my back'. He was lying on his stomach. We tried to help as much as we could."