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Shock, shame among some Muslims as Afghan accused of New Mexico murders

Participants in an interfaith memorial ceremony enter the New Mexico Islamic Center mosque to commemorate four murdered Muslim men, hours after police said they had arrested a prime suspect in the killings, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US August 9, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Hay

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ALBUQUERQUE, NM, Aug 10 (Reuters) – Muslims in New Mexico interviewed on Wednesday said they felt shock and shame at the arrest of a Muslim immigrant from Afghanistan in connection with the murders of four Muslim men.

Police on Tuesday said they detained 51-year-old Muhammad Syed. A motive for the killings remains unclear, but police said he may have acted on personal grudges, possibly with intra-Muslim sectarian overtones.

Syed denied being involved with any of the four killings when questioned by police, according to the New York Times.

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“We’re in complete total disbelief. Speechless. You know, kind of embarrassed to say he was one of our own,” said Mula Akbar, an Afghan-American businessman who said he had helped Syed settle in the city.

“His hatred of Shi’ites might have had something to do with it,” Akbar said.

Syed was from the Sunni branch of Islam and prayed together at Albuquerque’s Islamic Center of New Mexico (ICNM) mosque with most of the victims, three of whom were from the Shi’ite branch of Islam. All four victims were of Afghan or Pakistani descent. One was killed in November, the other three in the last two weeks.

Syed, who made his first appearance in court Wednesday, was formally charged with killing Aftab Hussein, 41, on July 26 and Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, on Aug. 1.

Police said on Tuesday they were working with prosecutors on potential charges for the murders of Naeem Hussain, 25, a truck driver killed on Friday, and Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, shot dead on Nov. 7, 2021, outside the grocery store he ran with his brother in southeast Albuquerque.

It was not immediately clear if Syed had retained a lawyer.

Police declined to comment on rumors Syed was angry one of his daughters had eloped and married a Shi’ite man.

The daughter told CNN that her husband was friends with two of the men who were killed, Aftab Hussein and Naeem Hussain. The woman, who CNN did not name out of concern for her safety, said her father was not happy when she married in 2018 but had become accepting more recently.

“My father is not a person who can kill somebody. My father has always talked about peace. That’s why we are here in the United States. We came from Afghanistan, from fighting, from shooting,” she told CNN.

Palestinian-American Samia Assed said the Muslim community of around 4,000 in Albuquerque had worked to do to prevent violence they left behind in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“This took me back to 9/11 when I just wanted to hide under a rock,” said the human rights activist after she hosted an interfaith memorial at the ICNM, Albuquerque’s oldest and largest mosque.

“For this to happen it’s like setting us back 100 years,” she said.

The mosque is nonsectarian, serves mainly Sunnis from over 30 countries and has never before experienced violence of this kind, according to congregants interviewed by Reuters.

Syed is a truck driver, has six children, is from Pashtun ethnicity and arrived in the United States as a refugee about six years ago from Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, said Akbar, a former US diplomat who worked on Afghan issues and helped found the Afghan Society of New Mexico.

Syed developed a record of criminal misdemeanors over the last three or four years, including a case of domestic violence, police said.

Video from February 2020 showed him slashing the tires of a vehicle at the ICNM believed to be owned by the family of the first known victim, Ahmadi, according to the mosque’s president, attorney Ahmad Assed.

“We’re in a surreal time trying to make sense of these senseless killings we’ve suffered,” he said.

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Reporting by Andrew Hay in Albuquerque; Editing by Donna Bryson, Howard Goller and Rosalba O’Brien

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Afghan Muslim arrested for killings that shook New Mexico’s Islamic community

ALBUQUERQUE, NM, Aug 9 (Reuters) – A Muslim immigrant from Afghanistan has been arrested as the prime suspect in the serial killings of four Muslim men that rattled the Islamic community of New Mexico’s largest city, police said on Tuesday.

After days bolstering security around Albuquerque-area mosques, seeking to allay fears of a shooter driven by anti-Muslim hate, police said on Tuesday they had arrested 51-year-old Muhammad Syed, one among the city’s Islamic immigrant community.

Authorities said the killings may have been rooted in a personal grudge, possibly with intra-Muslim sectarian overtones.

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All four victims were of Afghan or Pakistani descent. One was killed in November, and the other three in the last two weeks.

A search of the suspect’s Albuquerque home uncovered “evidence that shows the offender knew the victims to some extent, and an inter-personal conflict may have led to the shootings,” police said in a statement announcing the arrest.

Investigators are still piecing together motives for the killings of the four men, Deputy Commander Kyle Hartsock of the Albuquerque Police Department said at a news conference.

In response to reporters’ questions, Hartsock said sectarian animus by the suspect toward his fellow Muslim victims may have played a role in the violence. “But we’re not really clear if that was the actual motive, or if it was part of a motive, or if there is just a bigger picture that we’re missing,” he said.

Syed has a record of criminal misdemeanors in the United States, including a case of domestic violence, over the last three or four years, Hartsock said.

Police credited scores of tips from the public in helping investigators locate a car that detectives believed was used in at least one of the killings and ultimately track down the man they called their “primary suspect” in all four slayings.

Syed was formally charged with two of the homicides: those of Aftab Hussein, 41, and Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, killed on July 26 and Aug. 1, respectively, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina told the briefing.

The latest victim, Nayeem Hussain, 25, a truck driver who became a US citizen on July 8, was killed on Friday, hours after attending the burial of the two men slain in July and August, both of them of Pakistani descent.

The three most recent victims all attended the Islamic Center of New Mexico, Albuquerque’s largest mosque. They were all shot near Central Avenue in southeastern Albuquerque.

The first known victim, Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, a native of Afghanistan, was killed on Nov. 7, 2021, while smoking a cigarette outside a grocery store and cafe that he ran with his brother in the southeastern part of the city.

BULLET CASINGS

Police said the two killings with which Syed was initially charged were tied together based on bullet casings found at the two murder scenes, and the gun used in those shootings was later found in his home.

According to police, detectives were preparing to search Syed’s residence in southeastern Albuquerque on Monday when he drove from the residence in the car that investigators had identified to the public a day earlier as a “vehicle of interest.”

Albuquerque and state authorities have been working to provide extra police presence at mosques during times of prayer as the investigation proceeded in the city, home to as many as 5,000 Muslims out of a total population of 565,000.

The ambush-style shootings of the men have terrified Albuquerque’s Muslim community. Families went into hiding in their homes, and some Pakistani students at the University of New Mexico left town out of fear.

Imtiaz Hussain, whose brother worked as a city planning director and was killed on Aug. 1, said news of the arrest reassured many in the Muslim community.

“My kids asked me, ‘Can we sit on our balcony now?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ and they said, ‘Can we go out and play now?’ and I said, ‘Yes,'” he said.

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Reporting by Andrew Hay in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Rami Ayyub in Washington; Tyler Clifford in New York and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Cynthia Osterman, Daniel Wallis and Raju Gopalakrishnan

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Fourth Muslim man murdered in New Mexico in ‘targeted killings’

Houses reach the edge of the desert on the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico, US, July 5, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

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Aug 6 (Reuters) – Police in New Mexico and federal agencies were probing the murders of four Muslim men to determine if the killings, the latest of which happened on Friday evening, were linked while the state’s governor described them as “targeted killings.”

Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina told reporters on Saturday that a “young man who is part of the Muslim community was murdered.”

The victim’s name and the circumstances of the murder were not disclosed. In the previous three cases, the victims were ambushed and shot without warning, police said.

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Medina said the killing was possibly linked to the previous three murders.

Police in New Mexico had said earlier that the other three Muslim men murdered in the state’s largest city in the past nine months appeared to have been targeted for their religion and race. read more

“The targeted killings of Muslim residents of Albuquerque is deeply angering and wholly intolerable,” New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham tweeted late on Saturday. She also said she was deploying extra state police officers to Albuquerque to assist in the investigation.

Two of those murdered men were members of the same mosque, who were shot dead in Albuquerque in late July and early August. Police said there was a “strong possibility” their deaths were connected to the November killing of an Afghan immigrant.

Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, a planning director for the city of Espanola who came to the United States from Pakistan, was shot dead on Monday outside his Albuquerque apartment complex while Aftab Hussein, 41, was found dead of gunshot wounds on July 26 near the Albuquerque’s international district.

Those deaths are likely linked to the shooting of 62-year-old Mohammad Ahmadi in a parking lot by a halal supermarket and cafe on Nov. 7 last year, police said.

New Mexico State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Marshals Service are among several agencies involved in probing the murders.

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Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker

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Al Qaeda leader Zawahiri killed in US drone strike in downtown Kabul

  • Zawahiri tracked to safe house in Kabul
  • Hit by Hellfire missile while standing on balcony
  • “This terrorist leader is no more” – Biden
  • Taliban “grossly violated” Doha Agreement – Blinken

KABUL/WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) – The United States killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a “precision” strike in the center of Kabul, the Afghanistan capital, President Joe Biden said, the biggest blow to the militant group since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011.

Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon who had a $25 million bounty on his head, helped coordinate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Zawahiri was killed when he came out on the balcony of his safe house in Kabul on Sunday morning and was hit by “hellfire” missiles from a US drone.

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“Now justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said in remarks from the White House on Monday. “No matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”

He said he had authorized the precision strike in downtown Kabul and that no civilians were killed.

Three spokespeople in the Taliban administration in Kabul declined comment on Zawahiri’s death.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid had previously confirmed that a strike took place in Kabul on Sunday and strongly condemned it, calling it a violation of “international principles.”

A spokesperson for the interior ministry said a house was hit by a rocket in Sherpoor, an upscale residential neighborhood of the city which also houses several embassies.

“There were no casualties as the house was empty,” Abdul Nafi Takor, the spokesperson, said.

Taliban authorities threw a security dragnet around the house in Sherpoor on Tuesday and journalists were not allowed nearby.

A senior Taliban official told Reuters that Zawahiri was previously in Helmand province and had moved to Kabul after the Taliban took over the country in August last year.

US intelligence determined with “high confidence” through multiple intelligence streams that the man killed was Zawahiri, one senior administration official told reporters.

“Zawahiri continued to pose an active threat to US persons, interests and national security,” the official said on a conference call. “His death of him deals a significant blow to al Qaeda and will degrade the group’s ability to operate.”

Zawahiri succeeded bin Laden as al Qaeda leader after years as its main organizer and strategist, but his lack of charisma and competition from rival militants Islamic State hobbled his ability to inspire devastating attacks on the West. read more

There were rumors of Zawahiri’s death several times in recent years, and he was long reported to have been in poor health.

SANCTUARY

Osama bin Laden sits with his adviser Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian linked to the al Qaeda network, during an interview with Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir (not pictured) in an image supplied by Dawn newspaper November 10, 2001. Hamid Mir/Editor/ Ausaf Newspaper for Daily Dawn/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

The drone attack is the first known US strike inside Afghanistan since US troops and diplomats left the country in August 2021. The move may bolster the credibility of Washington’s assurances that the United States can still address threats from Afghanistan without a military presence in the country.

His death also raises questions about whether Zawahiri received sanctuary from the Taliban following their takeover of Kabul in August 2021. The official said senior Taliban officials were aware of his presence in the city and said the United States expected the Taliban to abide by an agreement not to allow al Qaeda fighters to re-establish themselves in the country.

“The Taliban will have to answer for al-Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul, after assuring the world they would not give safe haven to al-Qaeda terrorists,” Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Taliban had “grossly violated” the Doha Agreement between the two sides by hosting and sheltering Zawahiri.

Former President Barack Obama joined lawmakers in praising the operation.

“Tonight’s news is also proof that it’s possible to root out terrorism without being at war in Afghanistan,” Obama said in a Twitter message. “And I hope it provides a small measure of peace to the 9/11 families and everyone else who has suffered at the hands of al Qaeda.”

ReutersGraphics

Republican US Senator Marco Rubio said: “The world is safer without him in it and this strike demonstrates our ongoing commitment to hunt down all terrorists responsible for 9/11 and those who continue to pose a threat to US interests.” said

Until the US announcement, Zawahiri had been rumored variously to be in Pakistan’s tribal area or inside Afghanistan.

A video released in April in which he praised an Indian Muslim woman for defying a ban on wearing an Islamic head scarf dispelled rumors that he had died.

The senior US official said finding Zawahiri was the result of persistent counter-terrorism work. The United States found out this year that Zawahiri’s wife, daughter and her children had relocated to a safe house in Kabul, then identified that Zawahiri was there as well, the official said.

“Once Zawahiri arrived at the location, we are not aware of him ever leaving the safe house,” the official said. He was identified multiple times on the balcony, where he was ultimately struck. He continued to produce videos from the house and some may be released after his death, the official said.

In the last few weeks, Biden agreed to officials to scrutinize the intelligence. He was updated throughout May and June and was briefed on July 1 on a proposed operation by intelligence leaders. On July 25 I received an updated report and authorized the strike once an opportunity was available, the administration official said.

With other senior al Qaeda members, Zawahiri is believed to have plotted the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole naval vessel in Yemen which killed 17 US sailors and injured more than 30 others, the Rewards for Justice website said.

He was indicted in the United States for his role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and wounded more than 5,000 others.

Both bin Laden and Zawahiri eluded capture when US-led forces toppled Afghanistan’s Taliban government in late 2001 following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

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Reporting by Idrees Ali and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Alexandra Alper, Eric Beech, Jonathan Landay, Arshad Mohammed, Patricia Zengerle, Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar and Reuters staff in Kabul; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Stephen Coates

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