Muslims ask US to probe mosques blazes

By: Mohamed Ali

GLENDALE, United States: A Washington-based Islamic civil rights group has asked American federal authorities to step in and investigate whether two separate fires at US mosques this week were hate crimes.

In a letter to the US Department of Justice's Civil Rights Department, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on the government to investigate blazes at mosques in Arizona and Massachusetts.

CAIR said while citing local press reports that two firefighters suffered burns on Tuesday when a ceiling collapsed during a fire at the As-Sadiq Mosque in Glendale, Arizona, while a “suspicious blaze” on Wednesday gutted the Al-Baqi Islamic Center in Springfield, Massachusetts.

“Although it may be entirely coincidental that two mosques were burned to the ground in one week, these incidents follow a series of physical attacks against American Muslim institutions in the near past,” the letter said.

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