if you would like. the results of course. crashes into muslim worshipers leaving finsbury park mosque in north london injuring at least ten people. headlines this hour the u.s. led coalition in a syrian fighter jet the coalition says it was in retaliation after the jet opposition forces. also in syria. it has launched missile strikes against the terrorist positions.

with the top stories from the past seven days on right up to the moment of elements as well this is the weekly on r.t. international my names you know neal your company we started in the u.k. where a crowd of pedestrians near finsbury park mosque in north london injuring at least ten people these are live pictures now of what is occurring there the metropolitan police describe it as a major incident but. whether this was a deliberate attack or an accident. are out the scene one suspect being arrested at the group of muslim worshippers who had just attended a late night ramadan prayer service run to two and a half hours ago according to eyewitnesses the driver was wrestled to the ground by bystanders and held until police arrived at the scene. well let's

cross live to the churman of finsbury park mosque where this happened just outside the building mohammad caused our mohammed thank you for talking to us this hour and this of course happened during the last week of the holy month of ramadan do you think this was a deliberate attack on muslims. of course during the last days or from oakland a lot of muslims come to the mosque in the late night to pray and i think what's happened today is this. is a deliberate three people. as we heard from people on the scene that there were three people in the van and they came from the other side of the road two. people gather to have a break from prayers and unfortunately there is no. people who are lying on the floor. that one of the hardest hit by the people over to the police so it is it wide to see to this incident you believe there are

casualties because we have not verified it we have not heard anything on that we've just heard people are injured but you think people are dead. i think there is people that there is injured people as well from the people on the scene and that they've seen quite a few casualties on the floor and but just we have to wait maybe until morning to clarify especially the motive for why and why these people have to. indiscriminately and the people who gather because they are not just any muslims they are you know it is very diverse community of on their there is many muslims and muslims alike and it is unfortunate. that this happened in this area where people get together and we have no problem whatsoever between communities yeah i've just been reading a lot of reports of course about what happened trying to piece together information in some of those reports especially in the british tabloids mohammad that described

your mosque as the place where quote hate preacher abu hamza used to preach just to remind our viewers i mean. was the finsbury park mosque was convicted for terrorism a lot has changed since then of course does it bother you that they're bringing that aspect up at such a difficult time for you and people who go to your mosque. of course actually i mean homs i was in the mosque before two thousand and five i mean we are twelve years. ahead now two of the twelve years on people and unfortunately these tabloids media are still talking about this this this period it is unbelievable i mean the mosque now is an example for other mosque is it not just only a mosque it is a community center was it which opened its doors to everybody just only a few days ago we had this community of more than sixty people from our community leaders faith leaders politicians generally called our local m.p.

and the leader of the labor party attended our our if there are others so it is open for everybody to do the media to use this incident. which we all have to condemn as we condemn other incidents unlike what's happened much sister or. london bridge we have to condemn this this this incident goddess who is behind it all that as it is it is a terrorist attack on the most innocent people and many of them maybe lost their life so. it is not the time i think to dig up in the past twelve years from now on talking about. it is the time to speak about this incident unfolded as it is and. you know try to find out who was behind it and why they did what they did. you believe it was a deliberate attack using vehicles to modan pedestrians is growing ever more common

if this does turn out to be an attack on a terrorist attack out but we saw it in nice we saw in berlin and of course where you are in london twice recently in recent months how would you explain this trend mohammed. well i mean this such attack nobody comes look at or. can try to. be in or try to prevent prevent it from from happening we experience what's happened in westminster and london bridge and here we are another extremists from maybe a different type of extremist they are and they are using the thing in the same methods and their aim both extremists aim to divide our community to spread hatred division and. racism among our community we shouldn't let them do that we should stand all together as communities to condemn such utter and try to make sure that

this never happen again i mean we just only yesterday we had this event the memory of the killing of joe cook's the m.p. who killed on by a far right to extremists who we all communities together talking on this and the next day we've seen the horrible incident happen next to the governing we hand in finsbury park area and this is why the police should take these silly incident as they took the other incidents this seriously and find out who are behind it and make sure as well if there is any assist they had these these attackers these coat attackers if they have any assistance from from other of from other other people saw just to prevent such things or to happen and do it especially doing. i mean these these are families just leaving the mosques actually to to have a break and such a horrible things happen to him is

a shocking news here as you say a lot of children would have been there this weekend in the run up to the end of ramadan just what we have you as well what we're hearing more and more about our islamophobia attacks really in britain on right across europe since the three recent terrorist attacks in the u.k. have you sensed any hardening up towards british muslims. well yeah i mean there is a rise and some phobia the police just. said that this is a rise of our own seventy seventy percent since. the docs the terrorist attacks happened in the last few weeks a month. we have finsbury park mosque we receive calls from people using us threatening us and we've seen some individual attack here and there somebody tried to for example to set a fire in the mosque breaking their windows or some of our community members been

attacked specially women unfortunately i mean they've been attacked pushed in the street and so on but we never you know we never thought that something like that of a serious that we would that would happen. we try since ramadan we make sure that the security measures took place in the mosque and we have our our a security team there we didn't want the police presence because we don't want to people to panic and think that there is something might happen and they said such people intentionally go to a drive over. group of people you know you cannot you cannot prevent it you cannot stop it actually it's happening and. it might happen in the in the future so what we need to do we need to work as a community with the thought with the authority and try to make sure that the nation happened between us and make sure that things in never happen like this

again or with that what has been a very difficult evening for you on other worshippers of course at the at the mosque chairman of the finsbury park mosque in north london mohamad cosper thank you for coming on the program and sharing what you know her thoughts go out to the people who were hurt and hopefully at we do not hear of any casualties. in the area thank you very much mohamed. thank you. to other world news this hour a syrian fighter jet has been shot down by u.s. led forces the syrian government says the plane was conducting a counter-terrorist raid when it was brought down scythe of rock out the mosque based journalist al ibrahim has more. so if one of the us refers to the syrian democratic forces which is the militia group operating along with the u.s. led coalition trying to take the city off. from the control of ice all but we can

also confirm according to suffer through sources from the syrian military operating in that area that the popular jet was actually carrying strike against a convoy from ice and that the fighter jet in no way you posed any direct or in direct threat to any militia group from those militia groups operating alongside the u.s. led coalition trying to get control over gain control of the city or for the top warplanes of this so-called international coalition shut down one of where a fighter jets just south of and suburb of baraka the fighter plane was on a mission to destroy islamic state terrorist the aircraft crashed and the pilot is missing but i think there is more to that story and what's more to that story is that is the u.s. is trying to true boundaries in the syrian conflict and red lines. for the syrian army not to cross the man trying to actually prevent the syrian army from achieving two goals the first goal is to limit the presence of the kurdish militias which is

the backbone of sirte of acrostic forces and the second purpose is to actually. operational the syrian military to arrive to the city of those or to break an arsehole siege on the city that has been ongoing for three years to put things in perspective if it is pushed out of iraq which seems to be the scenario it's very likely that this will be pushed out through an agreement between the s.d.f. and i still that would allow isis fighters a safe way out and those fighters will then be will have only one choice to go to try to take the city from the hands of the syrian government since they have been actually in circling that city for the past two years the syrian battlefield is a very complicated one right now where it has the presence of various international and regional powers not to stay. it's russia syria iran has a whole lot of news has been law in addition to now you have the iraqi. army and iraq in addition to turkey all these traditional powers they have they are

directly involved in the syrian conflict right now it's very difficult to speculate what will happen in the coming days but what i can tell you for a fact is that it seems that the syrian army and the syrian government are adamant on actually moving on with their operation to break the arsenal so huge on the city of there is what i'm trying to limit the ability of the u.s. . led coalition and the u.s. troops who are now on the ground in syria limiting their ability to move on limiting their ability to create influence centers almost through battlefield and we have to understand that this is not just a syrian issue this is more of an international conflict and power play between the us. well some more details of what we know about this the u.s. coalition said the syrian fighter jet was shot down after it bombed opposition forces the pentagon also accused the syrian jet of straying into a so-called d. conflict zone according to a coalition statement syrian forces were forbidden from entering the area near the

village of judging where the u.s. backed s.t.'s the syrian democratic forces are based or the russian foreign minister earlier rejected the use of the term de confliction so saying the united states has drawn up its own boundaries without consulting other powers. i'm not aware of that it conflict zones the pentagon is referring to maybe there is ohms that have been established unilaterally where the coalition thinks that he will do whatever it wants we don't recognize such loans. as you know there are already discoloration zones that have been agreed on and established by syria iran turkey and russia and the steps by the coalition which don't receive consent from damascus are not legitimate. well the timing of the syrian jet is the latest in a series of u.s. strikes against forces fighting for the assad government over the past two months the u.s. coalition has conducted several bombing raids against pro-government fighters near the border with jordan the same justification was used that the pro assad forces

have breached the de confliction zone to delete dean managing editor of veterans today told us the u.s. is unwilling to coordinate with other parties in the conflict i would tend to believe the syrians because their sorties and their pilots are very valuable and they would be very careful the russians are on the lines all mapped out and they know that the u.s. would just love to have an incident like this but there are i've still forces in the area of the u.s. coalition is the one that has refused to coordinate these types of missions and campaigns to avoid this type of thing so they bear the responsibility of it. for staying with syria iran has fired several missiles into the country targeting terrorists allegedly responsible for two recent mass shootings in tehran and we suit discuss the story earlier with andre farmer here in the studio. the iranian

revolutionary guard which is the elite defense force in the country they've released a statement confirming that they have launched several ground to ground missiles from western iran into the region of eastern syria they say they were targeting bases of terrorists that they claim are responsible for those twin terrorist attacks in tehran earlier last week in this statement the revolutionary guard also said that they managed to significantly destroy the terrorist bases infrastructure and also killed scores of them as well we can now show some unfaired by video of. purportedly showing the moment when this missile was launched and this development is rather significant because. this is the first time that iran has launched a missile strike into syria since they've been cooperating very closely with their start regime and joining their fight against extreme. in retaliation to what happened in the seventh interrupt just remind us just exactly what happened that militants have targeted two of the most important buildings in the capital city on

june seventh that first gunman stormed the parliament building and opened fire when it was in session and then simultaneously separate militants have that's new to suicide bombs in the mausoleum of many who is the founder of this republic of iran so as you can imagine very significant buildings and those two attacks have led to the death of eighteen people and islamic state has since claimed responsibility following the attacks as you can imagine the government said that they were outraged and they have retaliation their revenge and the senior officials have also came out and queues saudi arabia of being involved they say that the fact that islamic state has claimed responsibility for the twin attacks proves a saudi arabia has been involved but bear in mind that saudi arabia and iran their regional rivals and the relationship between riyadh and tehran have really been increasingly tense and of course iran has long queues saudi arabia backing terrorism which is something that flat out denies a number of different parties and states are all involved in this. syrian conflict

fighters in the iran backed a lebanese militant group hezbollah they were officially invited by the assad regime to join the fight and iran has been providing military support sending in trainers and advisers for the assad forces as well but as you can see this is quite a significant development as is the first time iran has launched missiles into syria since the syrian war started six years ago lee editor in chief of iran's far as news agency told us what was behind the iranian missile strike in syria in tonight's a statement that the i.r.g.c. public relations has given up it is warn that this is the beginning if the terrorists embarked on conducting any second attack on iran iran would provide a much more vigorous response to them and not just it has also warned the backers and sponsors foreign sponsors of the terrorist groups including regional transfer regional and when i'm in the back years and when iran says trance regional

backers of the terrorist groups specifically means the united states now it is believed by many in and outside the iran that the united states and many of its allies there are backing the terrorist groups in the region especially in syria they need to reassess. their estimates and assessments and the calculations with regard to syria. to the developing situation in north london where a vom has had a crowd of pedestrians near finsbury park mosque injuring at least ten people. is this scene she joins us live by the way we're going to take a political commentator in just a moment we're talking to want to see a church no first use there on the seawall do we know what this stage i've just said ten are injured is not what you have. well you know i'm in the area right now

where quite a significant amount of streets have been cordoned off by police following this incident where a van crashed into the destin a mosque. park now this mosque is known as quite a major community hub and significant place of worship and what we know. a number of casualties had occurred following this incident we know that police were called to the scene shortly after midnight on two seven sisters road where i am right now and the police are currently describing this as a major incident we do know that casualties are being taken care of. again because it's quite a significant speech being closed off by police near the mosque it's. difficult to see what exactly is unraveling on the scene but we do know that several witnesses multiple witnesses actually have described the scene to the media

three people reportedly have been seriously injured and they have said that they are people on the ground we've also heard that over twelve emergency services vehicles have been dispatched to be take care of the situation and we do know that the muslim council has described the situation as basically have been running over worship heard outside finsbury park mosque we from what i can tell right now the community seems to be quite shaken by what has unraveled there are people certainly on the streets right now expecting answers and we'll be here following the situation once we get more details by phone from north london i was going to bring us up to date thank you very much for that let's bring in political commentator mo for his take on what occurred. i spoke a little while ago with the chairman of the mosque mohamed colors bar he said that muslim worshippers were. deliberately we're also hearing there

a disturbing update that there are casualties as well from the scene what do you what do you make of. this does look to be a direct attack on muslims are the most. i think first of all our thoughts and our prayers has to go out to the people who were affected directly and indirectly by the attacks it seems to be fold intents and purposes and acts all intentional targeted attack. targeting muslim wash those who have been outside i think it's a muslim welfare house which is just. mosque. i think how to do with the assistant secretary general of the muslim council of britain because lot as well from the mosque are both come out very strongly and said this is a targeted attack directly on muslims there are i think uncorroborated reports it's a call and we say there are unconfirmed as yet all two white men who were driving

a white van but what we do know is that it's plowed directly into russia is outside the mosque it's not down at least ten people we believe that there are awesome site policies that have been many brutal scene i think the early response from the muslim community has been one of outrage of one asking for calm and peace what we don't need to see is frustration boiling over the streets of london that have been some reports i think from people i know who have been around the scene about tensions between muslims that the police and i think first meet school socom we've had the usual voices from the far right and she muslim and she multiculturalists pro trump and of the media spectrum. and she was some campaigning like tommy robinson and others coming out and immediately attacking the mosque and condemning it for being a sense of terrorism and extremism i think this isn't this isn't the kind of dialogue we need right now they are attacks on muslim communities are the same as

the attacks. on any committee issued during a terror attack i think the frustration from mr community so far i've seen on social media and elsewhere has been all and unlike r.t. other news agencies have had relative. relatively poor reporting on this and people have been accusing media channels of dumbing down an attack on the i'm not trying to. trying to avoid creating a situation that seemed in this new terror attack i think it's going to be very unhelpful to people that are either individually or spectrum to try to use this for their own gains of personal or stopped with those involved but i think there are frustrations in the opera straightens in london it's night people are out and people are returning from washington during the month of ramadan just on the mosque churman also spoke about a recent wave of islamophobia in the u.k. and increasingly frequent targeting of muslims and just on this latest what seems to be a direct attack. a partly an elderly man was being held he collapsed at

a bus stop and people were helping him up which does seem to be particularly vile if a van just rammed into them the people doing the chargeable thing helping the old what is driving this what are your thoughts why this is hop in this particular thing. i think it's very early to say however i know in the wake of the grunts for example we had an eyewitness on the scene saying that she had felt and again it's uncorroborated difficult to know that this may have been a deliberate attack targeting muslims now there's no question tonight what's happened is been deliberate time. we saw most and wash those who were the first responders during the ground. all of the fire that we saw during the london riots we saw muslim wash because again during the month of ramadan. coming to help people that there should be people in british society a group of innocent. children out to the mosque praying at night starting with the

family in the friends and their loved ones outside the most this is the time of. festivity and of celebrations of people because the month of ramadan we're in the last ten days is a very auspicious time people are out trying to make the most of this time. we've seen over again across europe being used as weapons for carrying out targeted attacks on the general public we have seemingly will now have a situation which appears to be the same has been done against muslims and of course people are going to be talking about. tit for tat and they're going to talk about terror attacks they're going to be talking about. why muslims are being targeted and why there has been reluctant for so far you know we three or four hours in now we'll find out as monday morning develops what the reporting is like to see what the frustration from the most. we haven't had enough people condemning

it we haven't had enough people coming out and saying this is not the terror against so if muslims can be heroes if muslims can be. traced to terror they can victims of terror and i think all the communities will be even handed approach in the. political commentator mo once or most times for coming on the program such a morning as well and giving us your take on what's happened in north london thanks bill. ok briefly to other stories this hour an afghan official us toward our team that u.s. forces killed three civilians including two children last monday and that illegitimate u.s. troops open floor as a result they killed and his two sons. the shooting happened after a u.s. military vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb pentagon officials have still not confirmed reports of those civilian deaths though a statement from the u.s. mission in afghanistan did say however that the troops opened fire in self-defense . he heard from witnesses and relatives of victims are sticklers. they're too young

yet to fully understand what has happened or grasp the depth of their loss all they know is that their world has been shattered and wrenched upside down. this is my younger brother for a dollar he was killed by u.s. troops this is my brother sure in fact rules who killed. and this is my father he was killed as well they haven't yet learned to read or write but life has taught them early to hate. i want the government to avenge my father and kill his killers when my father and my brothers were killed everyone was sad at home my mother cries every day. it all began when a u.s. military patrol hit a roadside bomb by all appearances they paddick to the military when the explosion

happened i was near my uncle and cousins american soldiers opened fire and a bullet flew by my face i ran and hid and came out only a few hours later my uncle and cousins were dead so i went to the village to tell everyone this version is backed in the police report we were shown it says zero ghoul and his sons were at the shop. two hundred meters from the scene they were taken for terrorists and torn apart by gunfire it was terrible what the americans did to them i couldn't even recognize their bodies zita ghoul left behind twelve children six boys and six girls from now on their lives will be about survival clothing and feeding a dozen youngsters will be hard but for now it's anger that fuels them they killed them in a horrific way. we want to bring them to court so why should american troops be

allowed to kill people in this cruel way the u.s. stresses it takes every civilian life seriously and promises to investigate every casualty alessa these investigations often end with only apologies and for this family that's not enough they want americans out i don't want them here because they kill civilians we're tired of american soldiers there are explosions and they're killing the americans not helping us they're killing us we don't need them in afghanistan that is a refutation the coalition has built over more than a decade sixteen years of war and bloodshed atrocities and excuses and there's no end in sight it's no secret that life would have gotten a start he's harsh but.