US President Joe Biden has said that he is “angered and saddened” by the “horrific” killings of four Muslim men in the New Mexico city of Albuquerque, adding that “these hateful attacks have no place in America”.
“While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my administration stands strongly with the Muslim community,” he said in a tweet late on Sunday.
Police in New Mexico on Sunday asked for the public’s help in locating a “vehicle of interest” in their probe of the fatal shootings of the Muslim men whose slayings in Albuquerque over the past nine months are believed by investigators to be related.
Mayor Tim Keller said state authorities were working to provide an “extra police presence at mosques during times of prayer” as the investigation proceeds in New Mexico’s largest city, home to as many as 5,000 Muslims out of some 565,000 total residents.
The latest victim, police said, was gunned down on Friday night, in a killing that local Islamic leaders said occurred shortly after he had attended funeral services for two others slain during the past couple of weeks.
All three of those men, as well as the very first victim who was shot dead in November, were Muslim men of Pakistani or Afghan descent who resided in Albuquerque.
Police have given few details of the latest murder but described the first three killings as ambush shootings.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has characterised them as “targeted killings of Muslim residents.”
Albuquerque police officials told a news conference that they were following a number of leads and issued a bulletin with photos of a four-door, dark gray Volkswagen Sedan with tinted windows that they described as a “vehicle of interest” in the investigation.
It was left unclear how the car was tied to the case, and police said they had yet to determine whether they were seeking one or more suspects in the investigation.
The three latest victims belonged to the same mosque, according to Tahir Gauba, a spokesperson for the Islamic Centre of New Mexico. Officials were withholding the identity of the man killed on Friday pending notification of next of kin.
But Gauba said he was killed shortly after attending the funeral for the two previous victims.— Agencies
