A Minnesota mosque was bombed over the weekend, in what the governor calls “an act of terrorism.”
The bomb was thrown into and exploded inside Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington at 5am on Saturday while early-morning prayers, or Fajr, were beginning. No injuries were reported.
“Someone threw an explosive device and started a fire in the office of the Imam and President of the mosque,” the Muslim American Society of Minnesota said, according to NBC News. “The attendees put out the fire.”
The center’s executive director, Mohamed Omar, told NBC that the bomb was allegedly tossed into the mosque from a pickup truck. The FBI is currently investigating the incident but hasn’t determined whether it is a hate crime.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D), on the other hand, did not mince words.
“What a terrible, dastardly, cowardly terrible act this was that was committed yesterday,” Dayton said, according to the Associated Press. “As someone said in the meeting, if the roles were reversed, it would be called a terrorist attack. And that’s what it is, an act of terrorism.”
“Anything I could do to put a stop to it, I would gladly do,” he continued. “Because in Minnesota, we accept one another, we support one another, we respect one another.”
The local Bloomington community has also come to the center’s aid, defending the mosque and its attendees’ right to worship. “An attack on any of a place of worship is an attack on all places of worship,” Bloomington pastor Arthur Murray told NBC News.
The Bloomington mosque has previously faced threats via phone and email. Omar says that most threats are “people talking about us, telling us, accusing us that we shouldn’t be here, that we are like a burden to the community or we are like harming it,” according to NBC News. It remains unclear if there is a connection between the bombing and the threats.
The Muslim American Society of Minnesota is currently offering a $10,000 reward for anyone that can provide information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the bomber. The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Minnesota chapter is also offering a $10,000 reward.
A GoFundMe page for the center has also since been started to “garner support to rebuild this community center and mosque damaged after an Islamophobic attack.” The fundraiser states “extensive damage” was done to the imam’s office and the water sprinkler system during the bombing. The campaign has a $95,000 goal, and over $39,000 has already been raised from over 900 donations since it began on Aug. 5.
