Mansour Kaziha, Nadir Awad, and Amin Abdullah were known for everyday roles at the Islamic Center of San Diego. Kaziha let children take candy for free. Awad was cheerful and regularly attended to pray. Abdullah served as a security guard, greeting people with a bright smile and offering occasional life advice. After a Monday attack, they were remembered for courage that cost them their lives while preventing two gunmen from coming into contact with about a hundred children and staff inside the mosque. Security leadership said none of the men hid or ran away. Community members expressed grief and gratitude, while also pointing to anti-Muslim rhetoric as a contributing factor. FBI leadership described the suspects as teenagers with broad hatred and said investigators will determine what happened and how to prevent future violence.
"Mansour Kaziha was the mosque's shopkeeper known for letting children take candy for free. Nadir Awad was funny, cheerful and regularly went to the mosque to pray. And Amin Abdullah was a dedicated security guard who greeted people with a bright smile and the occasional sage life advice. Until recently, all three men were best known for small, everyday interactions at the Islamic Center of San Diego."
"But after the harrowing attack on Monday, they are now remembered for their larger-than-life acts of courage, which cost them their lives but prevented two gunmen from coming into contact with the some hundred children and staff who were inside the mosque. "At no point [were they] hiding or running away from what's happening," Ghouse Mohammed, the center's head of security, told NPR. "All three of them were heroes.""
"In the aftermath, community members have united in grief and gratitude for Abdullah, Kaziha and Awad as well as brewing frustration over how factors like anti-Muslim rhetoric both online and among elected officials led to Monday's act of violence. At a press conference on Tuesday, Mark Remily, special agent in charge of the FBI's San Diego field office, described the two shooting suspects as teenagers who shared a "broad hatred" toward different races and religious groups."
""We are thoroughly investigating this case to learn everything we can and will not stop until we get to the bottom of what happened and why," Remily said. "But we also want to learn how this happened and what we can do to stop future acts of violence." What we know about the victims Last week, when Amin Abdullah's daughter Hawaa earned her teaching credential, she said her father couldn't make it because he was at work."
#islamic-center-of-san-diego #mosque-attack #victim-courage #anti-muslim-rhetoric #fbi-investigation
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