US President Joe Biden has said that he is “angered and saddened” by the “horrific” killings of four Muslim men in the New Mexico city of Albuquerque, adding that “these hateful attacks have no place in America”.
“While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my administration stands strongly with the Muslim community,” he said in a tweet late on Sunday.
Police in New Mexico on Sunday asked for the public’s help in locating a “vehicle of interest” in their probe of the fatal shootings of the Muslim men whose slayings in Albuquerque over the past nine months are believed by investigators to be related.
Mayor Tim Keller said state authorities were working to provide an “extra police presence at mosques during times of prayer” as the investigation proceeds in New Mexico’s largest city, home to as many as 5,000 Muslims out of some 565,000 total residents.
The latest victim, police said, was gunned down on Friday night, in a killing that local Islamic leaders said occurred shortly after he had attended funeral services for two others slain during the past couple of weeks.
All three of those men, as well as the very first victim who was shot dead in November, were Muslim men of Pakistani or Afghan descent who resided in Albuquerque.
Police have given few details of the latest murder but described the first three killings as ambush shootings.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has characterised them as “targeted killings of Muslim residents.”
Albuquerque police officials told a news conference that they were following a number of leads and issued a bulletin with photos of a four-door, dark gray Volkswagen sedan with tinted windows that they described as a “vehicle of interest” in the investigation.
It was left unclear how the car was tied to the case, and police said they had yet to determine whether they were seeking one or more suspects in the investigation.
The three latest victims belonged to the same mosque, according to Tahir Gauba, a spokesperson for the Islamic Centre of New Mexico (ICNM). Officials were withholding the identity of the man killed on Friday pending notification of next of kin.
But Gauba said he was killed shortly after attending the funeral for the two previous victims.
Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, a planning director for the city of Espanola who immigrated from Pakistan, was shot dead on August 1 outside his apartment complex, less than a week after Aftab Hussein, 41, from Albuquerque’s large Afghan community, was found slain on July 26 near the city’s international district, police said.
Hussain also worked on the campaign team for US Representative Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico.
Police said they were treating those two slayings, along with Friday’s killing, as linked to the November 7 murder of 62-year-old Mohammad Ahmadi, also a Muslim from Afghanistan, who was shot to death in a parking lot outside a halal supermarket and cafe.
“There are several things in common with all four of the homicides,” city police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told reporters on Sunday.
Asked whether investigators consider the killings to be hate crimes, Gallegos said, “Hate is determined by motive, and we don’t know that motive at this point.”
Gauba estimated there are 3,000 to 5,000 Muslims living in and around Albuquerque, accounting for about 85 per cent of the entire state’s Islamic population.
New Mexico State Police, the FBI and the US Marshals Service are among the agencies assisting in the investigation.
Muslims urged not to walk alone at night
Meanwhile, the ICNM urged Muslims in Albuquerque to avoid walking alone at night and to make sure they are not followed to their homes.
“We urge everyone to take precautions and be aware of your surroundings including making sure that you are not being followed home and avoid walking alone at night,” the ICNM community message said.
“This is especially true for our members living in the southeast part of the city where these killings have taken place.”
Tahir Gauba, ICNM’s director of public affairs, said the local Muslim community — especially students who live near the area where two most recent shootings happened — “is feeling very afraid”.