San Diego shootings – act of domestic terrorism
WW editorial
One of the victims was Amin Abdullah, a security guard and father of eight children. He had worked at the Center for 10 years. Abdullah is considered a hero for sacrificing his life to protect the children who were in the Center during the shooting. Fortunately, no child was injured.

Workers World agrees with the assessment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), one of the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy groups in the U.S. In its statement, CAIR condemned the shooting, saying, “We are deeply disturbed, but not at all surprised, to learn that those who attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego were reportedly motivated by anti-Muslim hate.”
CAIR continued: “Hate against American Muslims is completely out of control. Numerous politicians have spent the past year claiming that all ‘mainstream Muslims’ should be destroyed, that American mosques and elementary schools should be shut down, and that American Muslims should be expelled from our nation. Just last week, House Republicans held a congressional hearing to fan the flames of hate against American Muslims, their houses of worship and even Muslim schoolchildren.
“A deadly attack on an American mosque was as predictable as it is unacceptable. Anti-Muslim hatred is one of the last acceptable forms of bigotry in American society, and it is long past time for the tolerance of this hate to end.” (cair.com, May 18)

Two thousand people attend a May 21, 2026, memorial for three victims killed at the Islamic Center in San Diego. (Photo: Al-Jazeera)
On its website, the San Diego Islamic Center states that its mission is to “work with the larger community to serve the less fortunate, to educate, and to better our nation.” (icsd.org) The other two killed were Mansour Kaziha and Nader Awad. Like Abdullah, they are considered heroes. Two thousand people attended a May 21 memorial in San Diego for the three victims.
The real culprit – Islamophobia
The two teenagers may have pulled the triggers that tragically ended the lives of three people. However, this shooting did not happen in a vacuum. It occurred amid a wave of anti-Muslim hate, also called Islamophobia, driven by the U.S. imperialist ruling class, its politicians and corporate media, who target Islam as a religion and culture anchored mainly in the oppressed nations of the world.
U.S.-based Islamophobia reached a fever pitch in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, (9/11), when the U.S. rulers scapegoated all Muslims for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Random individuals who wore traditional Muslim clothing were singled out for physical attacks, some resulting in loss of life.
Reactionary laws, such as the U.S. PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act of 2001, were passed after 9/11 to falsely label Arab people and Muslims in general as “terrorists.” This was to justify the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and to allow the George W. Bush administration to either deport or imprison Muslim individuals.
One example is Aafia Siddiqui, who (along with her children) was kidnapped by the U.S. from Pakistan in 2003. She was sentenced to 86 years in prison by a U.S. federal court and has been held in a federal prison near Fort Worth, Texas, since 2010.
Zionism is racism
On Oct. 7, 2023, organizations of the Palestinian Resistance rose against the Israeli occupation with the heroic Al-Aqsa Flood. When the Israeli Occupation Force responded with a genocidal war against the people of Gaza, a movement protesting this genocide developed around the world.
In the United States, these protesters have been arrested by the authorities and demonized by the bourgeois media as “antisemitic.” The corporate media’s labeling of any pro-Palestine action as “antisemitic” adds fuel to the fire of Islamophobia and spurs acts of racism, such as what happened in San Diego.
From 1975 until 1991, a symbolic vote took place annually in the United Nations General Assembly on the proposition that “Zionism is colonialism and racism.” A majority of countries, located mainly in the Global South, would vote “yes,” with the “no” votes always coming from the Zionist state of Israel, the U.S. and mostly other imperialist countries. The Palestinian Resistance has requested that the worldwide movement help resurrect “Zionism is racism” as a major slogan.
There are frequent public calls for an end to “anti-Jewish hate.” But the same cannot be said for calls to end anti-Arab or anti-Muslim hate. Such sympathy towards Muslims, which would be a welcome antidote to Islamophobia, fails to serve the geopolitical interests of U.S. imperialism and its pit bull ally, the decaying terrorist state of Israel


