An Islamic civil rights group on Thursday asked federal authorities to step in and investigate whether two separate fires at U.S. mosques this week were hate crimes.
In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Department, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the government to investigate blazes at mosques in Arizona and Massachusetts.
Citing local press reports, CAIR said two firefighters suffered burns on Tuesday when a ceiling collapsed during a fire at the Al Sadiq Mosque in Glendale, Arizona, while a "suspicious blaze" on Wednesday gutted the Al-Baqi Islamic Center in Springfield, Massachusetts.
"Although it may be entirely coincidental that two mosques were burned to the ground in one week, these incidents follow a series of physical attacks against American Muslim institutions in the near past," the letter said.
CAIR said violence against Arabs and Muslims -- as well as people presumed to be Arabs and Muslims -- has risen in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.