Over 2,000 mourn San Diego mosque attack victims at funeral

More than 2,000 people gathered in a San Diego park Thursday to mourn a security guard and two other men killed while trying to stop a shooting at the city’s largest mosque earlier this week.

Mourners, including uniformed police officers, stood in rows for the Islamic funeral prayer, or Janazah.

The bodies of the three victims — Amin Abdullah, 51; Mansour Kaziha, 78; and Nadir Awad, 57 — lay beneath cloth under a white canopy.

“God is the greatest,” attendees chanted in Arabic, raising their hands.

Many remembered the three men as heroes for delaying and distracting the two teenage suspects who opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday during school hours.

The three are to be buried alongside one another later Thursday at a nearby cemetery.

“Today is a message to everyone: Our community got hurt, but our community is standing strong and firm,” said the center’s imam, Taha Hassane.

He noted that people had flown in from across the United States to attend the ceremony, some coming from as far away as the East Coast.

One mourner broke down in tears as she talked about Monday’s shooting, which has put Muslims across the United States on edge during a time of rising Islamophobia.

“Today is just a really difficult day for our entire community,” said the mourner, who asked not to be named.

Monday’s attack is currently under investigation as a targeted attack. “We are considering this a hate crime until it’s not,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said shortly after the shooting.

Police have indicated that the three victims’ actions likely prevented further bloodshed.

The shooting began approximately 11:43 a.m. Pacific time (18:43 GMT), when Abdullah, the center’s security guard, engaged in a gun battle with the teenage assailants.

Police said he used his radio to order a lockdown at the mosque, which houses a primary school with 140 students.

His actions have been credited with allowing children and staff time to hide in classrooms and closets.

Awad, whose wife is a teacher at the center, lived across the street from the mosque. He and Kaziha, the center’s handyman and cook, heard the gunfire and ran toward the center to help. All three men died from their injuries.

The assailants fled the mosque in their vehicle and were later found dead from self-inflicted gunshots, police said.

Khaled Abdullah, 24, the security guard’s son, said his family has drawn strength from the way his father died.

“The fact that he was on the front line, trying to defend kids and innocent people, that makes me feel good,” Khaled told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday. “Calling him a hero is the least we can do.”