Police confirm mosque in Minn. was attacked
BLOOMINGTON, MINN. — Someone apparently threw a bomb through the window of a suburban Minneapolis mosque on Saturday as people were preparing for morning prayers, damaging the imam’s office but causing no injuries, authorities said.
Minneapolis police said a preliminary investigation showed a destructive device caused the explosion, “in violation of federal law,” and that the FBI has taken the lead in the investigation. An FBI spokesman didn’t return a phone message Saturday seeking details about the investigation.
Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also were involved.
The blast happened at around 5 a.m. at the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, south of Minneapolis. Worshipers managed to extinguish the blaze before firefighters arrived, according to a statement from the Muslim American Society of Minnesota.
A witness reported seeing something being thrown at the imam’s office window as about a dozen people gathered for morning prayers, said Asad Zaman, the society’s director. Zaman described it as a firebombing.
One worshiper saw a pickup truck speeding away afterward, said Mohamed Omar, the center’s executive director. He said the mosque, which primarily serves people from the area’s large Somali community, occasionally receives threatening calls and emails.
Usually, he said, it’s “people talking about us, telling us, accusing us that we shouldn’t be here, that we are like a burden to the community or we are like harming it.”
Trevin Miller, who lives across the street from the mosque, said he has heard occasional fireworks in the neighborhood, but nothing like Saturday morning’s explosion.
“It woke us up instead of my alarm,” he said. “It was loud, it was kind of like a firework-car crash-gunshot. It kind of shook me — like, you could feel it. I thought maybe somebody drove through our house or something. I jumped up and came out here to make sure ... no one was sitting in our living room.”
Yasir Abdalrahman, a worshiper at the mosque, said the explosion was “unimaginable.”
“We came to this country for the same reason everyone else came here: freedom to worship,” Abdalrahman said. “And that freedom is under threat. Every other American should be insulted by this.”
The mosque serves as a religious center and community organizing platform for Muslims in the area, according to the society. The group is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest or conviction.
A $10,000 reward also is being offered by the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. The group said its national office is urging Islamic centers and mosques to step up security.
The local chapter’s civil rights director, Amir Malik, said the group hopes the reward will help authorities quickly apprehend the perpetrator of the “act of violence.”
“If a bias motive is proven, this attack would represent another in a long list of hate incidents targeting Islamic institutions nationwide in recent months,” Malik said.