UK Muslims could be target of mass shooting: Minister
Britain’s Minister of State for Security Ben Wallace has warned Muslims in the country could become victims of high-profile terrorist attacks like those that killed 50 worshipers in two mosques in New Zealand on Friday.
Speaking to the BBC Radio on Monday, Wallace said the government was hugely concerned about the mushroom growth of far-right extremist groups in the UK which he said could be a serious threat to the safety of around three million Muslims living in the country.
Wallace said a mass shooting of Muslims seen in the city of Christchurch in New Zealand on Friday “absolutely could happen” in Britain, adding that police and other security officials have been busy over the past days hunting down suspects that could have been inspired by the massacre.
“The government has been concerned about the growing group of people crossing into the extremist mindset on the far right, and the neo-Nazis,” said the minister, adding that police in London and Wales have made arrests in connection to attacks and operations that are believed to have been terrorist or related to far-right activity.
Australia-born 28-year-old Brenton Torrent, who has yet to be officially identified, had said before his mass shooting of the Muslims in Christchurch that he was inspired by Darren Osborne, an English terrorist who drove his car into a crowd of Muslim worshipers outside a mosque in Finsbury Park, North London, in June 2017.
Right after the attack in New Zealand, police in east London rushed to respond to an attack on a Muslim man outside a mosque in the area. Muslims across the UK have suffered numerous hate attacks over the past years with many blaming the surge on an Islamophobic discourse existing in the media and supported by the politicians of the country.
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