AF3IRM San Diego’s Statement on Mosque Attack
IN DENYING OTHERS’ HUMANITY, THE SAN DIEGO KILLERS ERASED THEIR OWN
SAN DIEGO, CA: It seems almost inevitable that a shooting of a mosque should occur in a city whose mayor, after Operation al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, posted on Instagram, “We stand with Israel. All ways. Always.” And who, in March 2026, supported a city council resolution that conflated anti-semitism with opposition to Zionism and Israel, over the objections of the public and even of the sole Jewish council member. All this despite the mayor’s bloodline heritage that includes the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska. These peoples have endured occupation, land dispossession, and genocidal acts,
Frameworks of hate that favor one sector of the constituency over another are fertile soil for acts of violence. The rhetoric that fuels this abstract, impersonal hatred is solely because one group of people was dehumanized by geopolitical imperatives.
Thus, on May 18, 2026, two boys, ages 17 and 18, targeted the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three adult males, including the mosque’s security guard, Amin Abdullah. Abdullah was the father of 8 children, and his actions prevented the killers from reaching the Al Rashid School, which provides Islamic education for children. A subsequent search of locations connected to the two boys yielded a cache of 30 weapons, Islamophobic materials, and a manifesto. The boys were found dead in the car of one of the boy’s mothers, allegedly from “self-inflicted wounds.”
The attack was carried out on the second day of the Islamic holy month, Dhu’l-Hijja, during which Muslims worldwide prepare for the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. It also took place in the vicinity of two labor picket lines: that of the Pacific Northwest Staff Union, which supports labor movement personnel, and that of MTS – Teamsters 542, a union of public transport (bus) drivers in San Diego.
Present at the PNWSU picket line was an AF3IRM National Executive Committee member, who had to “shelter in place” – i.e., in the open – and was traumatized by the sight of the sprawled body of Abdullah. “It is such an ironic tragedy,” she said, “that we were picketing for better work conditions to enable better living conditions, and then have a mass murder erupt five minutes from where we were. Fascism indeed threatens every aspect of what we need to be human.”
AF3IRM NATIONAL AND ALL ITS CHAPTERS condemn every act of racist and sexist violence. AF3IRM decries the general ignorance regarding how the US government and corporate actions fueled migratory trends across the globe. AF3IRM calls for the return of ethnic studies programs, increased effort to familiarize the public with the reasons of migration into the US, as well as a focus on multiculturalism. AF3IRM will help close this knowledge gap with its Summer School on Women’s Activism, focusing on the collective experience of migration to the US as a personal one, to enhance the common humanity of migrants and locally born people.
We call on all who still respect democratic principles to anchor these on knowledge, rather than ignorance, respect rather than bullying, and solidarity rather than race superiority as we all strive for better working and living conditions, and in pursuit of a spirituality of peace and shared dreams. These are what makes a nation great, not hate, not violence, not inhumanity to others.
We send our condolences to the grieving Islamic community of San Diego.
