Explosion targeting New York mosque being treated as hate crime

The incident in which two people threw a device similar to a molotov cocktail at a metallic crescent moon symbol outside a mosque in New York's Long Island area last week is being treated as a ‘hate crime’ by local authorities.

The incident took place last Sunday when an incendiary device exploded outside Masjid Fatima Al-Zahra mosque in Ronkonkoma, Suffolk County, days before the Muslim festival of Eid al-Azha.

“They did not achieve anything but they expressed hate. Why?” said the mosque imam, Ahmed Ibrahim, at a press conference on Monday.

The incident did not result in any fatalities or injuries, but it was later determined that an ignited device was deliberately thrown at either the general vicinity of the mosque or specifically at the crescent moon symbol, reports said.

According to Afaf Nasher, the executive director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), this is the first time the mosque community has experienced such an incident in the country. 

“The firebomb that was detonated on July 4th at Masjid Fatima Al-Zahra may have damaged the property, but it failed to even scratch the resilience of the Muslim community,” Nasher was quoted as saying by Middle East Eye.

The crescent moon sign was installed outside the mosque in Ramadan and cost about $10,000 to build and install, according to a Newsday report.

The mosque is now putting on hold a $3m senior housing project that it was hoping to build on its property because it must now devote about $250,000 more a year to enhanced security with cameras and security guards, Hassan Mossolem, the chairman of the mosque’s board of trustees, told Newsday. 

Referring to the shortcomings of US law against hate crimes, New York Governor Kathy Hochul noted that “[these actions] will continue" adding that she "can't stop the hate in someone's heart".

“The bottom line is this community is united and stronger than before, that’s what this perpetrator accomplished,” she said.

Meanwhile, the US police department is also treating the case as a potential hate crime and has offered a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest in the case.

“A hate crime towards the Islamic Muslim community is a hate crime toward all Suffolk County residents,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said at the mosque on Tuesday. "This is something that everybody should be angry about.”

Hate crimes have been on a sharp rise in the US in recent years, with some states reporting around a 50 percent hike.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report last year showed that hate crimes in the US rose to the highest level in 12 years, triggered largely by a surge in assaults on African and Asian Americans.

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