Mosque

A man angry about a land dispute opened fire outside a village mosque in northern Yemen, killing at least seven people, authorities said. Provincial police said they arrested the attacker. Twelve people were wounded, six of them seriously. The shooting took place in Kohal in Amran province, 40 miles north of Sana, the capital.

Thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Charar-e-Sharif, accusing police of throwing a hand grenade into a mosque and killing four people. Schools and businesses in the city, 18 miles west of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, were closed as about 5,000 demonstrators marched to protest Friday's attack. Some protesters said they saw two people in police uniforms on a hill near the mosque and one of them threw the grenade. The government has promised to investigate.

A Southern California Islamic organization has asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate an incident last week in which three pig legs were allegedly thrown onto the site of a proposed mosque near Chino. The greater Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations asked federal officials to look into the incident as a possible hate crime. The mosque's construction was approved this year by San Bernardino County officials but has been stalled by a lawsuit filed by opponents.

The most visceral opponents of the proposed mosque in Temecula warned that it could become a potential foothold for Islamic extremists, accusing local Muslim leaders of backing terrorist groups. Supporters, including numerous residents and a contingent of pastors, rabbis and other religious leaders, called the months-long controversy a test of religious freedom and praised the peaceful virtues of Islam. Some dismissed critics as Islamophobic. After a marathon eight-hour hearing that ended at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Temecula City Council unanimously approved the mosque, a decision officials said was based not on incendiary religious or political issues but rather on such mundane matters as traffic, parking and environmental impact.

Gangs of men hurled bombs into a mosque and a movie hall in simultaneous attacks south of Algiers, killing up to 120 people, hospital sources said. Survivors said the raiders berated moviegoers for failing to say evening prayers. As victims streamed from both buildings in panic, the attackers unleashed a blitz of gunfire and hacked people to death, survivors said.

The Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a civil rights law firm have filed a joint complaint against the city of Lomita for denying the Islamic Center of South Bay's application to build a new mosque.‬ ‪The federal complaint, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles, contends that the city is discriminating against the center and that there is no evidence to back up neighbors' concerns about...

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Istanbul, Turkey -- In the most serious strike at Afghanistan's security apparatus since presidential elections two weeks ago, a suicide bomber today killed the country's deputy intelligence chief and 22 other people. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place outside a mosque in Laghman province about 60 miles east of the capital, Kabul. Authorities said the blast occurred as the intelligence official, Abdullah Laghmani, and his entourage were leaving the mosque where they had gone to pray during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

New York Gov. David Paterson and Archbishop Timothy Dolan on Tuesday called for peaceful dialogue in the ongoing discussions about plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in Manhattan. After a meeting with Paterson, the New York archbishop told reporters at a news conference that he and the governor agreed that people needed to not "be in one another's faces, but to kind of step back and take a sane look at things.

No common ground Re "Ground zero tolerance," Editorial, Aug. 11 As an American Jew, I have always felt profoundly grateful that half of my forebears left Hungary toward the end of the 19th century. By doing so, they and I escaped the Shoah that followed half a century later. The aspect of the quarrel about the proposed mosque near ground zero that has disturbed me most is that the Anti-Defamation League has aligned itself with those who object to the project. For an organization that describes itself as an enemy of bigotry of all kinds to lend its voice to the bigotry that lumps all Muslims with that minority who are enemies of this country is disheartening.

The bungalow-turned-mosque has no sign out front. It sits behind a Firestone tire store and across from a busy Dunkin' Donuts in a working-class neighborhood in suburban Virginia. Members of the mosque struggled Friday to understand how and why five well-liked members of its youth group went to Pakistan and were arrested on suspicion of seeking to join terrorist groups. "Those are our children," Essam Tellawi, the imam, said in an emotional sermon to about 30 worshipers after noontime prayers at the ICNA Center -- which is affiliated with the Islamic Circle of North America.