Community leaders condemn Minnesota mosque attack

It marks the fourth time in four weeks that a mosque in the Twin Cities has been vandalized.

The fire occurred at the Oromo American Tawhid Islamic Center, 430 Dale Street N. The St. Paul Fire Department tweeted that the building, which was being remodeled, was unoccupied at the time and that no injuries were reported.

Firefighters arrived at the scene of the “intentionally set fire” about 8:45 a.m. and extinguished it in about 10 minutes, said St. Paul Deputy Fire Chief Roy Mokosso. St. Paul police said at a 2 p.m. news conference that no arrests have been made in the case.

The parking lot around the mosque remained taped off late Wednesday afternoon as St. Paul police and agents from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) investigated the scene.

CAIR-Minnesota issued a news release saying that the mosque was “heavily damaged”.

It’s also unknown whether Wednesday’s fire is related to vandalism in St. Paul last week or fires at two south Minneapolis mosques last month, Mokosso said.

Other non-Muslim faith leaders in St. Paul, including Reverend Frenchye Magee from Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church, also visited the mosque in a show of support. Magee’s church is next door to the mosque.

“This is a hate crime,” State Representative Samakab Hussein, DFL-St. Paul, said at the scene. “And this is Islamophobia. And this is—I mean, if one Muslim person does something similar to this, we call them terrorist. But this should be a terrorist.”