A glass container with a flaming substance was thrown against a door Dec, 26, 2015, at Tracy Islamic Center in Tracy, Calif., police said. The incendiary device failed to catch the building on fire.(Photo: Courtesy of Tracy (Calif.) Islamic Center)
TRACY, Calif. — A day after investigators said a Texas mosque fire was intentionally set, deputies here are looking into an attempted firebombing at a Muslim house of worship in California.
San Joaquin County deputies responded to an incident at about 6:30 a.m. PT Saturday at the Tracy Islamic Center, 70 miles south of Sacramento.
A glass container with a flammable substance was thrown at a door to the mosque, Sgt. Nick Taiariol said. It broke, flamed and caused minor damage to the exterior of the building.
No one was injured, he said. No suspects have been identified, and it was not immediately known whether surveillance video was available.
"The recent spike in hate incidents targeting mosques nationwide is unprecedented and should be of concern to all Americans," Basim Elkarra, executive director of Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement. "We urge law-enforcement authorities to investigate this incident as a hate crime and to bring the perpetrators to justice."
USA TODAY
Texas mosque fire on Christmas called suspicious
From January to mid-December, the national council, an American Muslim advocacy group, has tallied 29 damage, destruction and vandalism incidents at mosques across the USA, the most since it began keeping records in 2009. Seventeen were recorded in November, all but two after the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris.
In Texas, arson investigators spent much of Saturday at Savoy Masjid, collecting evidence and interviewing adjacent business owners, after the mosque in a southwest Houston shopping center caught fire about an hour after worshipers left Friday. Officials there, too, are looking for suspects in a possible arson.
No one was hurt in what became a two-alarm fire, but federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials became involved because agents routinely are called to investigate fires at religious institutions.
USA TODAY
Police: Two mosques near L.A. defaced
"Everything happened so quickly in such a short time," said Shamim Qadri, a longtime worshiper at the Houston mosque.
Both the Tracy and Houston incidents may be the latest in a string of crimes against Muslim houses of worship since a husband and wife, supposedly inspired by Islamic extremists, killed 14 people Dec. 2 at a holiday office party in San Bernardino, Calif. Other incidents of vandalism and arson include these:
• On Dec. 4 in North Palm Beach, Fla., the Islamic Center of Palm Beach had a dozen windows shattered. Joshua Killets, 27, of Juno Beach, Fla., faces a variety of charges in connection with the vandalism, including hate crime.
• On Dec. 5 in Twin Falls, Idaho, boards covering windows of a mosque under construction were sprayed with graffiti asking the question, "hunt camp?" The phrase is believed to be a reference to the Japanese internment camp during World War II in Hunt, Idaho, about 20 miles away from the Islamic Center of Twin Falls, and no one has been arrested in the case, according to the Twin Falls Times-News.
• On Dec. 11 in Coachella, Calif., Carl James Dial, 23, of Palm Desert, Calif., is accused of firebombing the Islamic Society of Coachella Valley mosque. He pleaded not guilty last week, and his next court appearance is Monday.
• On Dec. 12 in Hawthorne, Calif., southwest of Los Angeles, vandals defaced a pair of mosques — the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Baitus-Salaam Mosque and the Islamic Center of Hawthorne — the next day. Investigation into those crimes is ongoing.
• Also Dec. 12 in Macon, Ga., graffiti that included the profanity and the word "terrorist" were spray painted on the Islamic Center of Macon. No suspects have been arrested in that case.
Since the Paris terror attacks, extreme anti-Muslim rhetoric in national politics has trickled down to create permission for violence in local communities, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Montgomery, Ala.-based advocacy group that tracks hate groups.
Contributing: Bill Bishop and Stephanie Whitfield, KHOU-TV, Houston
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