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 The increasing safety concerns described by American Islamic
leaders – and the steps they are taking in response, including
hiring armed guards - represent the flip side of the rising public
anxiety about Islamic State-inspired terror after attacks in Paris
and San Bernardino, California.
The call by Republican presidential contender Donald Trump to ban
Muslims from entering the United States only amplified concerns
about an anti-Islamic backlash at mosques and community centers,
religious leaders and organizers say.
At least two mosques – one in Phoenix and the other in suburban
Virginia – are working with the Department of Homeland Security to
check up on the security their facilities provide for worshippers in
recent weeks. Others report taking a range of steps, including
hiring armed guards, because of fears that an American mosque could
be a target for an attack.
"We are always concerned about lone wolf attacks," said Usama Shami,
president of a Phoenix mosque that has been working with the
Department of Homeland Security to review its security measures
since the Paris attack last month.
 Over the weekend, police arrested a 23-year-old man suspected of
setting a fire at a Southern California mosque in what authorities
are describing as a hate attack, following the massacre of 14 people
in San Bernardino on Dec. 2 by a Muslim couple, U.S.-born Syed
Rizwan Farook, 28, and his Pakistani-born wife Tashfeen Malik, 29.
Authorities have not said if the suspect was motivated by the
shooting.
That fire set on Friday at the entrance of the Islamic Society of
the Coachella Valley caused no injuries. But it charred the
building's stucco front entrance and left it littered with debris.
The FBI is also investigating an incident in Philadelphia in which
someone drove past a mosque and threw a severed pig's head at it
from a passing truck as a possible hate crime.
On Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy
group, was forced to evacuate its office on Capitol Hill after
receiving a letter containing white powder. The note said, "Die a
painful death, Muslims," CAIR attorney Maha Sayed said.
"Our fear is at a pretty high level at this time, given the
anti-Muslim rhetoric going on," said Sayed.
'FEARFUL' SECURITY GUARDS QUIT
Given the rising tensions, some mosques say they have struggled to
hire and keep security guards. In Dulles, Virginia, a suburb of
Washington with a large Muslim community center, security guards
abruptly quit after the San Bernardino attacks, said Rizwan Jaka,
chairman of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society.
"Security guards resigned because they were fearful of getting hurt
in the backlash," Jaka said. "People were concerned."
 The mosque has now hired armed guards and the imam of the mosque,
Mohamed Magid, said security had been increased for programs in
which children take part. "We are concerned about the feeling in the
larger community about Muslims," he said.
Jaka said that after the San Bernardino shooting federal law
enforcement officials had also completed a security assessment for
the mosque.
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At the East Plano Islamic Center near Dallas, Texas, Nadim Bashir,
the imam, said the mosque had hired an armed security guard ever
since the Paris attacks. "We're just trying to ramp up our efforts
in the community and get a better name," said Bashir.
A mosque in Corona, California, which, like San Bernardino, is a
working-class suburb on the dusty eastern edge of Los Angeles, has
spent $10,000 over the past two weeks to increase security. It is
now asking for donations from the congregation to defer that
expense, Imam Obair Katchi told Reuters.
The Islamic Society of Corona-Norco has also put up a banner on its
website denouncing the San Bernardino attack. The mosque has faced
extra scrutiny after it emerged that Enrique Marquez, who supplied
guns used in the San Bernardino massacre, had once attended.
"The Muslim community stands shoulder to shoulder with our fellow
Americans in repudiating any twisted mindset that would claim to
justify such sickening acts of violence. We encourage everyone to be
extra vigilant," the mosque’s website says.
Not all mosques see the need for new security. Mufti Ikram Ul Haq at
the Rhode Island Masjid Al-Islam said the mosque there is relying on
a police presence during prayer times.
"We have surveillance. We lock our doors and we have an alarm
system," he said. Local police, Haq said, "have been increasing
patrols around our places of worship, and that gives us enough sense
of security."
The FBI will not release data on hate crimes for 2015 until next
year. Some critics, including CAIR, say the official statistics
undercount reported incidents targeting Muslims. For 2014, FBI data
showed that out of 1,140 victims of anti-religious hate crimes,
approximately 16 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.
"Anecdotally, there is no question that we have had something of a
flood of anti-Moslem hatred and hate crimes," said Mark Potok, a
senior fellow at the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law
Center, a civil rights group.
(Additional reporting by Alana Wise in San Bernardino, California,
and Doina Chiacu and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Kevin
Krolicki; Editing by Mary Milliken)
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