London attack: Finsbury Park Mosque has become totemic in terror politics

Finsbury Park Mosque acted as a magnet for radicals

The shadow of Abu Hamza and Al Qaeda lies long and heavy across Finsbury Park Mosque in north London. The mosque has long been cast in the public imagination by the terrorist activities that were so brazenly carried out there until Hamza and his followers were finally ejected after police raids in 2003.

Along with a former MI5 agent, Reda Hassaine, who was undercover in the mosque during the late 1990s, I wrote the book about how Hamza captured the mosque by force from what was, at the time, a rather naive mosque committee. The committee