SINGAPORE — The anti-Muslim terror attack earlier this week in London could be a harbinger of similar incidents globally, including in Singapore where mosques could be threatened, analysts said.

Such attacks, if they happen, may lead to a vicious circle of violence perpetuated by Islamist extremists as well as anti-Muslim elements.

On Monday, a white British man deliberately drove a rental van into a group of Muslims leaving prayers at the Finsbury Park Mosque in London. At least 10 people were injured in the attack, which took place during Ramadan, the holiest month on the Muslim calendar.

Witnesses said they heard the suspect, who was named in British media as Darren Osborne, 47, shouting “I want to kill all Muslims” before ploughing into worshippers leaving the mosque.

Experts caution that the London attack could spark similar incidents in other parts of the world.

“The recent anti-Muslim attack is neither the first nor will it be the last being carried out by right-wing terrorists who despise Islam and Muslims,” Dr Mustafa Izzuddin, a fellow at the Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute, told TODAY. “The attack is certainly a harbinger of things to come globally and so it would be wise not to rule out the possibility of a mosque in Singapore being defaced or attacked by Islamophobes,” said Dr Mustafa.

Mr Noriman Mohd Salim, a senior crisis and security consultant with risk consulting firm Control Risks, echoed this view, but noted that Singapore’s strict security laws have deterred religiously motivated violence and should continue to do so.

Singapore’s leaders have warned frequently that a terror strike in the city state is a matter of “when, not if”.

There are concerns that jihadists will use the Finsbury incident to incite more violence. Already, Islamic State (IS) supporters have used Monday’s attack to fuel more tensions.

“Muslims, you need to wake up, the war is starting now in your own streets,” an IS message said, according to the Site Intelligence Group.

Two years ago, the IS released a handbook that explicitly hoped for such a scenario. “When Muslims and mosques will be attacked by neo-Nazis in protests, Muslims will do counter-protests,” the handbook stated.

So far, there have been no indications that the suspect in the London mosque incident was a neo-Nazi or right-wing sympathiser, though it was a notion often implied on social media, The Washington Post reported.

“This is how the future jihad in Europe will begin,” the IS handbook said, urging supporters to fuel the violence. “People in between will be caught in the crossfire and will have to pick sides.”

Terrorism expert Jasminder Singh told TODAY that it would not be surprising to see the IS and other jihadist groups taking advantage of the London mosque strike for their own propaganda purposes.

“This kind of an attack fits into their narrative, and the IS has mastered the art to use instances such as this to their benefit. It feeds into their doctrine of al-wala’ wa-l bara’, which is premised on the doctrine that non-Muslims are by default enemies of Islam and Muslims,” said Mr Singh, a senior analyst at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

The fear is that the mosque incident could lead to a vicious circle of violence. “Right-wing extremists would use IS acts to justify attacking Muslims, while the Islamic State in turn would use right-wing extremist acts as an excuse to attack Western targets,” Dr Mustafa said. “It would be a bottomless pit of violence.”

In such a scenario, what would exacerbate the problem for policy-makers, Mr Noriman said, would be the “three-cornered fight” between the authorities, Islamist radicals, as well as anti-Muslim elements.

Governments that already have their hands full dealing with Islamist militancy would now have to grapple with the threat of right-wing extremism as well, observed Mr Noriman, a former officer with the Singapore Police Force’s Special Operations Command. WITH AGENCIES