Muslim groups fear backlash after Fort Hood shooting

Fri Nov 6, 10:20 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Fearing that a gunman who killed 13 people at a military facility in Texas may have been Muslim, US Islamic groups braced themselves for a public backlash against the faith on Thursday.

Soon after Pentagon officials named one of the shooters at the Fort Hood facility as Nidal Malik Hasan, groups rallied to condemn an act President Barack Obama had earlier described as a "horrific outburst of violence."

"The guy's name is a Muslim name," Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) told AFP, expressing fears about damage to inter-faith relations, already strained by the September 11, 2001 attacks, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.


In a statement, CAIR condemned the shootings as a "cowardly attack" adding that "no political or religious ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence.

"American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured."

Qaseem Ali Uqdah, who was a Marine for 21-years before becoming the Executive Director at American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, now fears a "witch-hunt" like that which followed September 11, 2001.

"This is a criminal act and we have to treat it like a criminal act, not something to do with religion" he told AFP.

For the estimated 3,500 Muslims in the US armed forces, Uqdah said there could be some fallout from the attack.

"What we don't need is people downrange sitting in foxholes (in Afghanistan or Iraq) questioning if you are a Christian, if you are a Muslim or if you are a Jew... that is not what we need as a nation.

"We need to fight the war on terror together," he added.

In a Pew survey published last September, 38 percent of respondents said that Islam encouraged violence more than other religions.

Fifty-eight percent said there was a lot of discrimination against Muslims in the United States.