Muslims Fear Talk of Sniper Link
Many Worry a Tie to Their Community Could Spark Backlash
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 18, 2002; Page A17 Like many other Washington area residents,
they are driving their children straight to the schoolhouse door, limiting
shopping trips and forgoing outdoor activities. But Muslims who live in the
region say they face an additional trauma from the deadly attacks of an
elusive sniper: dread sparked by speculation that the killer could be linked
to al Qaeda or another Muslim extremist group.
In recent days, some terrorism experts have raised the possibility that the
sniper may be connected to foreign groups targeting the United States.
Federal officials have said there is no evidence of such a connection but
they have not ruled it out."Obviously, we are concerned first of all about
the sniper who is targeting innocent people at random because we live here,
our families live here," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the
Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. "For the Muslim
community, there is always the fear that this could be tied to international
terrorism and we would suffer backlash and discrimination again. So we have
two levels of fear.
"Law enforcement officials have not issued a description of the assailant.
Although one witness to the most recent slaying, in a parking garage outside
a Home Depot store in Fairfax County, initially described the killer as being
neither white nor black and possibly olive-skinned, his account has since
been discredited by police.Still, mere speculation about a possible tie to
international terrorism has had an impact on the Muslim community, said
Sharifa Al Khateeb, who lives in Great Falls and is vice president of the
North American Council for Muslim Women. "It makes them feel demonized," she
said, "very unfairly.
""It hurts that that's the first thing people think about, that it could be
Muslims who are doing this," said Amna Arshad, a junior studying
international affairs at George Washington University, where she is president
of the Muslim Student Association. "It didn't really come to my head until I
started hearing it in the news media."Given everything that's happened in the
last couple of years . . .
it seems logical," added Arshad, who lives in Great Falls. "But at the same
time, it's not fair. If it was before 9/11, a Muslim terrorist wouldn't be
the first thing people think about."Arlington resident Mamoun Fandy, who is
from Egypt and has written books and articles about Islamic extremists, said
that Muslims are "very worried that . . . this time they will pay a high
price if it turns out an Arab American or someone of Arab descent is doing
this."Their fear, he added, is that such a development "would unleash all
kinds of violence against the [Muslim] community and it would have no way of
answering back. . . . They would be totally embarrassed, totally shocked.
People are just panicking; they are just praying it wouldn't be one of them.
"Mohamad Yusuff, a D.C. government employee and editor of the newsletter
Voice of Islam, said he was impressed that police did not issue a composite
drawing of the suspect "because they do not wish to be wrong or to stereotype
a whole ethnic group." "Obviously we ourselves would not want this person to
be of foreign extraction or a person of color,"
Yusuff said.Several Muslims listed reasons that they believe the sniper is
not Muslim. They said that no Muslim, and especially one with the deluded
belief that he is killing for religious reasons, would declare, "I am God,"
as the sniper is believed to have written. The note was written on a tarot
card found by police near the site where a middle school student was shot in
Bowie."This would be an unforgivable sin in Islam," said Hooper.
In addition, one of the first victims was a taxi driver, a job held by many
Muslim immigrants. If the sniper were Muslim, he would have had to consider
that he was likely killing a member of his own faith, several Muslims said.
The slain cabdriver, Premkumar A. Walekar, 54, of Olney, was an immigrant
from India and a Seventh-day Adventist.
All these points, however, have counterarguments. The tarot card could have
been a deliberate diversion. And the terrorists who attacked the World Trade
Center on Sept. 11, 2001, did not care that many Muslims worked there.As the
hunt continues, Muslims said they are praying both that the killer is quickly
caught and that he is a stranger to their faith. "We hope and pray these
people have no link to our community," said Nihad Awad, executive director of
the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "God help us if there is any link.
. . . It will be another nightmare for our community."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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