Latest Minneapolis mosque attack leaves community shaken and fearful for their future

The latest attack on a mosque in Minnesota has left the local Muslim community fearful and concerned about their future.

The incident occurred last week on 27 August at 2 am, when a man broke into the mosque using a metal bar and rummaged though multiple rooms at the Darul Hikmah Islamic Center in Minneapolis, with initial estimates pointing to thousands of dollars in damage to the building.

Last week's mosque attack is the 35th in three years in Minnesota, making it by far the state with the highest rate of such incidents. 

"It seems like we can't get a break. Ever few weeks, something is happening," Jaylani Hussein, Executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told The New Arab. The group is urging for a probe of a bias motive in the incident. 

"For us, it's deeply concerning. It doesn't seem to be ending. We haven't even hit peak election season," he said, referring to October, the month before voting day and January, when the presidential handover takes place. In 2020, vigilantes who denied the results of the 2020 election stormed the US Capitol. 

Minnesota has seen a surge in mosque attacks in recent years, the most infamous being in 2017 when members of a militia bombed Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington. 

The frequency of mosque attacks in Minnesota has increased in the last three years, with some attributing this trend to threats against Representative Ilhan Omar, herself a Muslim from the Somali community. The Minneapolis area has the highest concentration of Somalis in the US. 

Hussein says that mosques in Minnesota are working to ramp up their security and are hoping to secure federal funding for better surveillance cameras, which could serve as a deterrent. Meanwhile, members of the community continue to feel unsettled by the frequent attacks on their mosques.