From Sandra Johnson
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Sunday said his administration “stands strongly with the Muslim community” in the wake of the killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico, over the past nine months in suspected targeted attacks.
Biden, in a statement posted to Twitter on Sunday, said he’s “angered and saddened by the horrific killings.” He added that “these hateful attacks have no place in America.”
“While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my Administration stands strongly with the Muslim community,” he said.
The president’s comment comes two days after a fourth Muslim man was found dead. Both federal and local authorities have said that they are still investigating whether this latest death is linked to the three others, while the state’s governor has described all four men as “targeted.”
The first three killings, which took place respectively on Aug. 1, July 26 and Nov. 7, involved the victims being fatally shot in an ambush-style attack, authorities have said.
Details about the fourth man’s death have not been released as of Sunday afternoon. He has only been described as being in his mid-20s, Muslim and a native from South Asia.
A $20,000 reward has been offered for information into the shootings by the Albuquerque Metro Crime Stoppers.
Police in New Mexico on Sunday asked for the public’s help in locating a “vehicle of interest” in their probe of the fatal shootings of the Muslim men whose slayings in Albuquerque over the past nine months are believed by investigators to be related.
Mayor Tim Keller said state authorities were working to provide an “extra police presence at mosques during times of prayer” as the investigation proceeds in New Mexico’s largest city, home to as many as 5,000 Muslims out of some 565,000 total residents.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has characterized the attacks as “targeted killings of Muslim residents.”
Albuquerque police officials told a news conference that they were following a number of leads and issued a bulletin with photos of a four-door, dark gray Volkswagen sedan with tinted windows that they described as a “vehicle of interest” in the investigation. It was left unclear how the car was tied to the case, and police said they had yet to determine whether they were seeking one or more suspects in the investigation.
The three latest victims belonged to the same mosque, according to Tahir Gauba, a spokesperson for the Islamic Centre of New Mexico (ICNM). Officials were withholding the identity of the man killed on Friday pending notification of next of kin.
But Gauba said he was killed shortly after attending the funeral for the two previous victims.
Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, a planning director for the city of Espanola who immigrated from Pakistan, was shot dead on August 1 outside his apartment complex, less than a week after Aftab Hussein, 41, from Albuquerque’s large Afghan community, was found slain on July 26 near the city’s international district, police said. –Agencies
