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Sunday 15 Feb 2015 - 10:31 Makkah mean time-26-4-1436  Suspicious fire burns US Islamic center in Texas (Google image) Houston, Texas (IINA) - A massive fire has broken out at an Islamic center in southeast Houston, Texas ahead of Friday morning prayers, damaging and destroying most of the building.
Texas fire officials said that an accelerant was used to burn down an Islamic community and education center early morning an act of arson.
In a preliminary investigation, officials said they believe that the fire started in the back of one of three buildings at the Quba Islamic Institute around 5 a.m on Friday, news agencies reported.
"The damage on the back building is total," Houston Fire Department district chief Ken Tyner earlier told ABC News as saying. "The whole entire building back there is burned up."
Ahsan Zahid, the son of the center’s imam said in a Facebook post that the building contained “our materials, our computers, our monitors, our lights, and everything we were going to use for our renovation project, but the fire was so destructive it completely destroyed everything.”
Kenyatta Parker, public information officer at Houston Fire Department told Al Arabiya News: “I can confirm that the fire happened this morning, no one was hurt and no one was in the building at the time.
Mustafa Carroll, executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Houston chapter, told ThinkProgress on Saturday, that the two other buildings sustained minor damage. Carroll said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating after they found that the fire was started with an accelerant, but authorities couldn’t yet definitively say that the fire was a hate crime.
The incident has prompted, “Heightened awareness” among the Muslim community in Houston, Carroll admitted. His organization has begun preparing safety kits that include information to teach people “how to protect their mosque, be vigilant about security, not to walk alone.”
The incident happened at the time that three young Muslim students, one male and two female, were shot dead in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on Tuesday.
Mohammad Abu-Salha, the father of the two female students, told the crowd during their funereal on Thursday that they were victims of a hate crime.
SM/IINA
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