The Christian Science Monitor: San Diego mosque shooting comes amid anti-Muslim spike. What can be done?
The deadly attack on a California mosque this week has reignited concerns about rising Islamophobia in the United States and the radicalization of young people, often men, in extremist corners of the internet.
After the May 18 shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, police recovered writings, believed to have been authored by the two teenage suspects, that expressed hatred not only toward Muslims but a broad range of minority groups. That follows a familiar pattern in which extremist attacks appear motivated by a smorgasbord of ideologies.
“What we know from the manifesto is it’s a little bit of everything,” says Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State University who studies extremism. “They’re cherry picking elements of the far-right, of Islamophobia, of antisemitism, of anti-LGBT, of racism and white supremacy.”
The shooting, in which the gunmen fatally shot three people before killing themselves, appears to be the first ideologically motivated, lethal attack on a mosque in the U.S. this century, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It has rocked the country’s Muslim community, which has faced a sharp rise in Islamophobic rhetoric and incidents since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel retaliated by declaring war against Hamas in Gaza.
