WASHINGTON:
In the past few days, there have been seven cases of vandalism and
attacks on mosques across Unites states, which have sent a tremor of
fear through America’s Muslim community.
The incident including deadly shooting spree in a Sikh gurdwara in
Wisconsin on Aug. 5, the other seven incidents were mosque defacement.
On August 6th, a mosque in Joplin, Missouri, was burned to the ground.
Monday’s blaze followed an attack on July 4, when an unidentified
suspect threw a petrol bomb onto the roof of the same mosque, causing
minor damage.
No one was hurt in the incident, according to a statement by the office that referred to the mosque as an “Islamic Church.”
On August 11th, shots were fired at a mosque in Chicago and on the
same day in Ontario, CA, pig legs were thrown in the driveway of a home
where Muslims gather to worship until a mosque is built there.
On August 12th, vandals shot paintballs at an Oklahoma City mosque.
And just on August 13th, an Islamic school was hit an acid-filled bottle in Lombard, Illinois.
The Missouri mosque’s surveillance cameras captured an image of the
assailant’s face, and the FBI recently offered a $50,000 reward for
information leading to the arrest of the man behind the July incident,
but no one has been apprehended.
FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton said both incidents occurred in the
middle of the night, but said the FBI would “wait to determine the cause
of the fire.”
“If it is determined that the attack was intentional, we will conduct
an investigation to see if there is any correlation between this fire
and that of July 4,” Patton added.
But the local Muslim community, which numbers around 125, said the
fire was one of a series of attacks on their mosque since it was founded
in 2007.
The American Islamic Congress, a Muslim advocacy organization with
headquarters in Washington, Boston and across the Middle East-North
Africa region, condemned the attacks against the Mulim’s mosque
and Wisconsin Sikh Temple.
