{"id":324235,"date":"2026-05-20T07:22:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T07:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/324235\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T07:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T07:22:20","slug":"what-to-know-about-a-deadly-attack-on-a-san-diego-mosque-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/324235\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about a deadly attack on a San Diego mosque"},"content":{"rendered":"

An attack by two teenagers on a San Diego mosque<\/a> left a community mourning its victims, Muslim leaders calling for increased security and investigators parsing white supremacist writings by the suspects that expressed hate toward various religions and races.<\/p>\n

The teens killed three men and then themselves after trying to storm the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday. A mosque leader said the attack could have been much worse if not for one of the victims \u2014 a beloved security guard<\/a> \u2014 shooting back and using his radio to initiate a lockdown, helping to keep the attackers away from the 140 children who were just steps away.<\/p>\n

Investigators said Tuesday they recovered more than 30 firearms and ammunition as they searched homes associated with the teens.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what to know about the attack.<\/p>\n

The teens met online and shared white supremacist views<\/p>\n

Mark Remily, the lead FBI agent in San Diego, said Tuesday that the suspects met online and discovered they both lived in the San Diego area. It remained unclear how they became radicalized, he said.<\/p>\n

Authorities say two teenage suspects opened fire at an Islamic center in San Diego, California, killing three men before taking their own lives. The killings are being investigated as a hate crime. (AP video by Javier Arciga)<\/p>\n

The Associated Press obtained writings of both suspects, including hateful rhetoric toward Jewish people, Muslims and Islam, as well as the LGBTQ+ community, Black people, women, and both the political left and right. Both express beliefs that white people are being eliminated, and one writes about mental health struggles and being rejected by women.<\/p>\n

The teens \u201cdidn\u2019t discriminate on who they hated,\u201d Remily said.<\/p>\n

Police identified the attackers as Caleb Liam Vazquez, 18, and Cain Lee Clark, 17.<\/p>\n

Police were looking for the teens when the shooting began<\/p>\n

The mother of one of the suspects called the police around 9:40 a.m. Monday, saying her son was suicidal and had run away. The search for the teen took on more urgency<\/a> as police learned that he was dressed in camouflage, had taken multiple weapons from the home, and was with an acquaintance \u2014 facts that were not consistent with someone about to die by suicide, said San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl.<\/p>\n

Officers were still interviewing the mother about places the teens might be when the shooting began at the Islamic Center, the largest mosque in San Diego County.<\/p>\n

Details emerge about security guard\u2019s heroic efforts<\/p>\n

As the shooters barged into the lobby of the mosque, they wounded the 51-year-old guard, Amin Abdullah<\/a>, who used his radio to start a lockdown protocol and kept firing at them, the police chief said. He forced them back outside, where they fatally shot him. Abdullah was a father of eight who had worked at the Islamic Center for a decade.<\/p>\n

The attackers returned inside and began searching through rooms that were emptied during the lockdown, Wahl said. At some point, two others who were killed drew the gunmen farther away from the building.<\/p>\n

Mosque leaders identified the other victims as Mansour Kaziha, 78, and Nadir Awad, 57. Kaziha, known as Abu Ezz, \u201cwas everything\u201d to the Islamic Center \u2014 handyman, cook and caretaker, said Imam Taha Hassane. Awad\u2019s wife is a a teacher at the school, and he lived across the street from the mosque.<\/p>\n

Another tragic attack reverberates nationally<\/p>\n

The shooting was the latest in a string of attacks<\/a> on houses of worship and comes amid rising threats and hate crimes targeting the Muslim and Jewish communities since war began in the Middle East, forcing increases in security<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kaiser Aslam, Muslim chaplain at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said reactions in his community have been \u201cheavy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a lot of imam chats or admin chats that I\u2019m a part of, there\u2019s an effort to make sure that everyone recognizes we need increased security,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Condemnation of the attack came from many quarters, including the chief of the United Nations, who stressed \u201cthe urgent need to confront hatred and intolerance in all their forms,\u201d his spokesman said.<\/p>\n

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres \u201cstands in solidarity with the Muslim community and calls for a full investigation into the attack,\u201d U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press reporters Julie Watson in San Diego, Eric Tucker in Washington; Mariam Fam in Winter Park, Florida; Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles; Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama; and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An attack by two teenagers on a San Diego mosque left a community mourning its victims, Muslim leaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[134404,134941,2598,134945,134943,7,723,18,36697,134942,134946,134944,6163,74,76,75,8875,15774,134940,2036,17,14764],"class_list":["post-324235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-amin-abdullah","tag-antonio-guterres","tag-assault","tag-cain-lee-clark","tag-caleb-liam-vazquez","tag-california","tag-crime","tag-general-news","tag-islam","tag-lee-clark","tag-mark-remily","tag-nadir-awad","tag-religion","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-scott-wahl","tag-shootings","tag-stephane-dujarric","tag-teens","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}