how do they how would you say is the best way for them to channel this energy and emotion that they re feeling? i think the biggest thing is to wait and let s find out the facts. if you look at social media right now, they are telling everybody what happened. they are making conclusions. they may be right, they may be wrong in the long run. but it is certainly genning up fear. it s irresponsible. but that s what twitter is about. you even have people on the right in the u.k. like tommy robertson, a horrible guy on the right out there, literally blaming muslims for this attack, saying this is sort of what they get. you see this back and forth. i m sure in america, you see people in the media, on twitter, you re going to see some scary words. i ll be honest with you. the muslim community in the u.k. after the manchester attack, very publicly made it clear they denounce terrorism. did whatever they could to stand unified with their fellow u.k.
be proven in a court of law becomes an embarrassment. it actually can harm people and it can harm populations. just to give you a sense of what london may be dealing with now if this is a targeted attack against the muslim community. there are over 2 million muslims in the u.k., and 1500 mosques. so, you think about soft targets. 1500 of them, in the middle of ramadan or end of ramadan, it ends i believe on saturday, six days from today. so, that is a lot of protecting that will need to be done. so, we will wait to see what the definitive statement is. i think what we do know now, though, is that the muslim population in london will feel threatened by this. they need to be able to observe their faith with freedom, especially during ramadan. and, so, it s incumbent on the
irritation among british law enforcement and british politicians about the leaks that were coming out about the attack coming out of the united states. so, they are very careful about what they say publicly. and the fact that they have said that they don t as yet know the motivation, i don t really take that as necessarily meaning anything because the investigation is late at night, and this is a group of people who are very, very careful about what they say publicly. we are looking at live pictures right now, split screen from different vantage points on the scene. this is, again, in north london in simsbury park near the area where this collision happen, a van hitting pedestrians a little after midnight local time. of course now it s been about three hours that have passed since this incident took place. people are filling the streets looking for answers and trying to understand exactly what
they have also been targeted by extreme right wing protest groups, antiislam groups and so forth. i think i read at one point about someone s head being delivered to the mosque or being left at the mosque. there has been this concern within the community, this concern within the mosque itself, particularly over the years as it has worked to try and reset its reputation, to try and shed that reputation for extremism, for sense of contributing, if you like, to extremist thought, ideology, and indeed perhaps violent acts themselves. the community here has been concerned. but they say working very hard to try and get past all of that. now, we don t know if this was that sort of attack, an anti-islamic attack, some sort of reprizal attack. we don t know that yet. the police aren t saying that yet. as you recorded, it s too early
in south carolina. people sitting in bible study for an hour, then summarily executinge africa americans. mirities in houses of worship are starting to get attacked even more in the west. it is important to look at it in this holistic totality and not just as an isolated incident. yes, peter bergen, what do you think about if this indeed is an attack on muslims and this idea that isis is trying to create a them against us narrative to fuel their viewpoint, their fire of sorts? does this play into that for them? yeah, i mean, i think so. i mean, osama bin laudin was in a civilization in which the west was at war with muslims. it would be a war that muslims would inevitably win, and certainly that is the isis