Mosques ramp up security after foiled terror plot and vandal attacks

Some centres have brought in guards to secure places of worship including the country's biggest in Glasgow which now has 24/7 patrols.

Omar Afzal from the Scottish Association of Mosques told LBC: "There's a great deal of fear and alarm within the community. It's feeling really under threat and really vulnerable.

"Mosques across the country are really looking at their security measures and increasing them.

"Some are looking at bringing in security guards and some already have. The country's largest, for example, Glasgow Central Mosque, has 24 hour security now as a result of what's happened over the last few months."

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One incident saw a teenager throw paint over a mosque in Aberdeen in March and smash a window as people met inside.

Another mosque in Elgin was targeted in April where the building was vandalised for a third time with several of its windows damaged.

The Newton Mearns Islamic Centre also reported another incident to police this week where a man allegedly attacked a schoolgirl in the street and made threatening comments against Muslims.

And in August, a Nazi-obsessed teenager who plotted a mass murder by setting fire to the Inverclyde Muslim Centre in Greenock was jailed for 10 years.

The 17-year-old plotted the attack for months, even befriending members of the mosque in a bid to gain access to the building.

Mr Afzal said: "If it not been for the intervention by Police Scotland, you were essentially looking at a mass casualty event, a terrorist attack taking place at that mosque.

"And the fear is, that is something that's now likely to happen given the way in which the situation over the last few months has really spiralled. Particularly with the things that people are now able to say very comfortably publicly, and the way in which attacks now against Muslims, against mosques, against hotels hosting asylum seekers, have become so normalised.

"It's an issue that's cropped up across the country. We can no longer be complacent here in Scotland and think that we are an exception to what's happening across the UK or across Europe. We're very much seeing the symptoms now of poisonous rhetoric from politicians, reflected in the media, play out on the streets where very legitimate concerns that people may have are now being weaponized against minority communities and against Muslims.

"I think going forward we really need to look at what more can be done by politicians, what more can be done by anybody within civic society, to try and help counteract this.

"We need to look at political speech first of all, and the way in which that's being weaponized. And we've had report after report about the rise of Islamophobia, about the normalisation of Islamophobia.

"We've had a public inquiry here in Scotland by this cross party group into tackling Islamophobia. Off the back of that, there was a number of recommendations which haven't been implemented yet. So we've seen this coming and I think it's time now that we take some real tangible action to try and tackle this."

Scotland's First Minister John Swinney's previously said: "Violence, prejudice, racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism, have no place in our society, and nobody should ever be subjected to them.

"This Government will always work to ensure every person living in Scotland is protected, and that we are united in our opposition to anyone who would seek to use disorder as a means of division."

"Scotland is a diverse, multicultural society where everyone is welcome, and I want us to be united in our opposition to anyone who would seek to use disorder and violence to divide people. However, we are not immune to the actions of a violent, misguided minority and therefore we must remain vigilant"

And speaking yesterday about an incident where a brick was allegedly thrown through the window of a hotel housing asylum seekers in Falkirk said: "It is absolutely despicable.

"There will be people inside that hotel who have experienced fear and terror. It appalls me."