Their manifestos contained Nazi imagery and white supremacist messages.

On Tuesday, Mark Remily, the lead Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent in San Diego, informed that the two teenage gunmen who killed three people at a mosque on Monday and then themselves were radicalized online and expressed white supremacist views and hatred toward multiple religions and races.

RELATED:

Louisiana Shooting Leaves One Dead and Five Injured

“The pair didn’t discriminate on who they hated,” Remily said, adding that the teenagers met online before carrying out the attack at San Diego’s Islamic Center, a facility that also houses the Al Rashid School. At the time of the attack, there were about 140 children inside.

San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said the two shooters arrived in camouflage and attempted to barge through the front doors of the facility. They were immediately confronted by the mosque’s security guard, Amin Abdullah, one of three killed in the attack.

“He sacrificed his life to stop them from getting inside the classrooms,” Imam Taha Hassane, director of the Islamic Center of San Diego, said at the briefing.

Based on security camera footage at the mosque, authorities said Abdullah engaged the shooters in a gun battle and used his radio to call for an immediate lockdown of the school before being wounded in the lobby. His resistance forced the gunmen back outside, where they ultimately shot and killed him.

The tactical delay allowed teachers to hide the children in locked and darkened classrooms. When the gunmen re-entered the school, they found only empty hallways. They were drawn back out to the parking lot by two other mosque regulars — Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad — who also attempted to intervene and were fatally shot.

Police had been searching for the teenagers two hours before receiving the first emergency calls from the mosque, after the mother of one of the teenagers reported her son was suicidal and missing, along with missing family firearms and a vehicle.

While officers were interviewing the mother, 911 calls reported an active shooter at the mosque. When police officers arrived, they found three adult victims deceased outside the mosque. The suspects fled in a vehicle, firing at a nearby landscaper who was not fatally injured, before ultimately taking their own lives.

Investigators said they recovered stockpiles of ammunition, multiple firearms and a crossbow from the teenagers’ residences. The FBI identified the deceased shooters as Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18. Manifestos authored by the pair contained Nazi imagery and white supremacist messages.

On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a leading Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the country, called on law enforcement authorities to step up security at mosques and Islamic institutions nationwide.

“This horrific terror attack is the deadly consequence of years of anti-Muslim hate, demonization and dangerous rhetoric targeting American Muslims and other marginalized communities,” Nihad Awad, national director of the organization, stated.

In response to the tragedy, Islamic centers and synagogues across Southern California announced increased private security and coordination with local law enforcement to protect their congregations.

Federal authorities confirmed that the investigation remains open as digital forensics teams analyze the teenagers’ computers and phones to determine if any other online actors were complicit in planning the attack.

teleSUR/ JF

Source: Xinhua

IN THIS ARTICLE