Texas Muslims on edge amid protests, contest attack

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/texas-muslims-on-edge-amid-protests-contest-attack/2015/05/05/43deacf6-f379-11e4-bca5-21b51bbdf93e_story.html


Muslim community leader Khalid Hamideh, right, and Alia Salem, Executive Director of Council on American-Islamic Relations, hold a news conference condemning the two gunmen who attempted to attack a contest for Muslim Prophet Muhammed cartoons, Monday, May 4, 2015, in Garland, Texas. A Garland police officer shot and killed both men. (Brandon Wade/Associated Press)

By Jamie Stengle?|?AP May 5 at 6:51 PM

DALLAS — When an outspoken opponent of radical Islam sought to mock Muhammad in Texas, one of the nation’s largest Islamic communities, local Muslims were encouraged to ignore her, and they did.

No one protested when Pamela Geller’s cartoon contest attracted about 200 people to suburban Dallas Sunday, even though some Muslims in Texas were already feeling aggrieved and fearful over growing anti-Islamic sentiment in the state.

Then, two men with attack rifles drove in from Arizona and opened fire on officers guarding the conference center in Garland. Both were shot dead, an officer was shot in the leg, and from the other side of the world, the Islamic State group made an unproven claim of responsibility.

“This is the exposure that they wanted and this is the divisiveness that they wanted to bring,” said Omar Suleiman, resident scholar at the Valley Ranch Islamic Center in Irving, a Dallas suburb with a sizeable Islamic community.

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