A mosque in Ohio was attacked for the third time. Members doubt Trump’s FBI will call it a hate crime | Ohio

Nashid Shakir describes how assailants used wire cutters to break into the Westwood Islamic Community Center in the early hours of 3 August.

“They cut the wire and broke the window to get in. They broke into the office, too. It was total disarray,” says Shakir, a board member, and member, at the community center since the 1960s.

Just as troubling is the smashed glass – still evident – on two posters containing lines in Arabic from the Quran hanging on one of the center’s walls.

He shows where valuables including a surveillance camera and television monitors were stolen and where swear words including the word “die” and other profanity were written on a whiteboard.

The leaders of the center, which houses a mosque and food pantry and is situated in an underserved, majority-Black neighborhood in west Cincinnati, and local Muslim community members have called the incident a hate crime.

It’s the third time the center has been broken into in the past seven years, with the previous incident seeing racist comments graffitied on the center’s walls.

“The police came out and they checked the boxes for making a report. But we haven’t had any follow-through,” says Shakir.

The attack happened against the backdrop of a rise in Arab and Muslim American politicians running for political office in the US, and a series of shocking Islamophobic comments that have followed from Republican politicians and far-right figures.

In Michigan, Democratic senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been targeted by conservative and rightwing voices following his primary win on 4 August. El-Sayed, an epidemiologist who has called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and for an end to US military funding for Israel, has been repeatedly targeted by Donald Trump.

A report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), a Washington DC-based thinktank, found that the targeting of El-Sayed increased twentyfold since the election earlier this month.

On 10 August, Trump told reporters from the Oval Office that “we have jihadists being elected all over the place”, echoing rhetoric that noted extremists have used in their attacks on Muslim Americans in recent weeks and months.

In March, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) reported an unprecedented rise in the number of Islamophobic incidents and discrimination nationwide last year. In May, three people were killed by two attackers at a mosque in San Diego.

“What we are seeing right now is a very organized and coordinated campaign to generate fear and hysteria about Muslims for electoral gain, to justify domestic policies, and build support for foreign wars,” says Raqib Naik, executive director of the CSOH.

“The idea that Muslims are coming to ‘take over’ America is more mainstream. It is a continuation of post-9/11 Islamophobia, but in many ways, it has become uglier and more blatant. We are now at a point where 65 members of Congress have formed a so-called ‘Sharia-Free America caucus.’”

Formed last December by the Texas Republican representatives Keith Self and Chip Roy, the so-called caucus has representatives from 17 states.

“What is particularly worrying is that bigotry once largely confined to fringe anti-Muslim groups is now being repeated and amplified from the highest office in the country, by elected officials, billionaires and major political influencers,” says Naik.

In Ohio, Somali Americans in particular have been subjected to Trump-fueled violence and immigration crackdowns. Last winter, ICE agents, rightwing influencers and other provocateurs descended on childcare and other facilities run by Somali Americans in Columbus following false claims from Trump that members of the community were “ripping off the country”.

Amid this climate, religious and community leaders in Ohio say there is little doubt whether federal law enforcement would do anything to help.

Muslim leaders say that no suspects in the Westwood Islamic Community Center attack have yet been apprehended.

Tala Ali, a community organizer at Cair-Ohio and a Cincinnati resident, says she does not intend to approach the FBI to ask them to investigate the community center attack as a hate crime.

“I don’t have trust in authorities to find who’s behind this. We have had incidents where the largest mosque in Cincinnati was bombed,” she says.

In December 2005, two pipe bombs exploded outside Cincinnati’s Clifton mosque, resulting in significant damage to a door and windows. The explosions happened just two hours after worshippers had gathered to pray. No one has ever been charged with the attack.

“Our focus now is to get local authorities just to acknowledge it and condemn it and any acts of bias, intimidation [or] violation against the Muslim community and the Black community,” she says.

“I think that this was an identity-motivated targeting, so by definition because of that [it’s a hate crime].”

With about 25 people gathering to pray at the center’s mosque on most Fridays, now the local Muslim community is working to find support to improve security at houses of worship around Cincinnati, including at the community center, which at the time of the attack had no security cameras.

Shakir says he has been surprised by the positive response from the wider Cincinnati community but not by the rhetoric emanating from the White House.

“I take what [Trump] says with a grain of salt even though I know there’s a part of the country that takes what he says as gospel,” he says.

Ali says the local Muslim community would like to apply for federally funded grants through the Federal Emergency Management Agency that specifically tailor to non-profits in need of security assistance. But because of who’s in government, she says, locals aren’t sure about seeking that out.

“Look at the culture and the environment that we live in. Do you want to bring that into your house [of worship]?” she says.

“Because, will these people really protect you, or will they use it, as they have historically used it, to access what we do in our community?”