Al-Baqi Islamic Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, on fire. (AP photo)

WASHINGTON, December 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A leading American Muslim group said the community are concerned over a rising wave of mosque blazes in different parts of the country, urging the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to open investigations.

Two mosques in the United States were set ablaze recently, raising fears that Muslim community in the country that the attacks were anti-Islamic hate crimes spiraling in the US since the September attacks.

The Washington-based Council on the American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) urged the FBI to launch investigation into the incidents.

“Given the recent pattern of incidents targeting Islamic institutions in the United States, and the Muslim community's concerns about the rising tide of Islamophobic rhetoric in our society, I would respectfully request that the Department of Justice assist in ruling out the possibility that these most recent incidents were bias-motivated hate crimes,” said CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar Thursday, December 9.

Iftikhar sent a letter to the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division asking the FBI to assist in the investigation of a fire at a  Virginia gas station that may have been motivated by anti-Muslim or anti-Arab bias, CAIR said in its website.

On Wednesday, December 8, the Al-Baqi Islamic Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, was set ablaze, leaving the slate roof on the two-story building collapsed and the structure temporarily too unstable.

A day earlier, the Al-Sadiq mosque in Glendale area, Arizona, was set on fire when a blaze caught the building.

Investigators believe the blaze started in a multipurpose room on the mosque second floor that housed a large-screen TV and where members gathered for movie nights, dinners, and meetings.

They stressed, however, that the cause of the Al-Baqi mosque fire is still unknown.

“'They are not pointing in any direction at all,” said James McNally, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in Boston, The Boston Globe reported.

“'It's going to take a little time,” he added.

“Suspicious”

The Al-Baqi mosque imam Rasul Seifullah said investigators believe the mosque fire appeared to be “suspicious”.

He added that the mosque has been looked since that attack.

Gha-Is Shakr, the Al-Baqi mosque member, said the fire in the mosque followed at least two recent incidents on the Islamic center and another mosque nearby.

He stressed that there was a break-in at Al-Baqi several weeks ago in which items were stolen.

About a week later, someone broke a window at nearby Muhammad Mosque, he added.

“'It seems to be following a pattern. I think it's in the atmosphere right now. It's disheartening. Something seems to be brewing here.”

A Sikh-owned gas station came under an arson attack by unidentified attackers who left racist graffiti such as “F***Arab go home” behind.

More Attacks

Several other Islamic places had come under attacks in the recent few months.

In Fargo, North Dakota, vandals smeared feces on a mosque. In the neighboring state of Minnesota, two Islamic centers were also vandalized. In Texas, firebombs were thrown at an El Paso mosque.

Also in Texas, a man was arrested for threatening an El Paso Islamic center. An arson suspect was also arrested at the scene of a fire at a Muslim business in San Antonio and vandals scrawled racist graffiti on the interior of a Lubbock mosque.

In Washington, D.C., a Muslim prayer area at American University was vandalized.

Earlier this year in Florida, vandals wrote “Kill all Muslims” inside the Islamic Community Center in the Tampa suburb of Lutz. In Missouri, vandals painted a Nazi swastika and the word “die” on an addition under construction at the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis.

In 2003, a Florida man was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison for plotting to attack some 50 Islamic institutions in that state.

Nearly 57 percent of American Muslims polled by CAIR complained of having experienced bias or discrimination since the September 11 attacks and 87 percent know of a fellow Muslim who experienced discrimination. 

A May report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded that the Muslim community in the United States has taken the brunt of the Patriot Act against terrorism and other federal powers applied in the aftermath of the 9/11 deadly attacks.