Fire and Gunshots at Tennessee Mosque Site Called ‘Terrorism’
On Sunday, one day after a fire at the site of a planned Islamic center and mosque in the Nashville suburb of Murfreesboro, Muslim community members reported hearing gunshots as they inspected the damage.
Saleh Sbenaty, an engineering professor at Middle Tennessee State University who is on the the Islamic center’s planning committee, told The Daily News Journal of Murfreesboro that nine shots, in two volleys, were fired near the property while he and female family members looked at construction equipment burned in the fire. Mr. Sbenaty, who has lived in Tennessee for three decades, said, “It was nothing like a hunting rifle.”
Carmie Ayash, a spokesperson for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, in a statement posted on the center’s Web site, called the fire an “arson attack” and an “atrocious act of terrorism.”...