los angeles — Three people were killed by two teenagers Shooting at a mosque in San Diego They were beloved pillars of the community and died while rescuing nearly 140 children who were in the building at the time of the attack, authorities said Tuesday.
San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said the three men were shot while trying to delay and distract the two gunmen who stormed the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday.
The imam of the Islamic Center in San Diego, Taha Hassan, identified the three victims as Amin Abdullah (51 years old), Nader Awad (57 years old), and Mansour Kaziha (78 years old), known as Abu Al-Ezz.
Hassan said: “We call them our brothers in society. We call them our martyrs and heroes.”
Authorities described how the shooting occurred based on security camera footage at the mosque, which is the largest in San Diego and attracts thousands of people from across the region during major holidays. In addition to performing prayers five times a day, it also serves dinner and breakfast during the Ramadan fasting period, hosts a school for Arabic and Islamic studies, and has an in-house shop.
When the shooters, ages 17 and 18, entered, they passed Abdullah apparently without warning, Wahl said. Abdullah, who had been a security guard for the mosque for nearly a decade, quickly confronted them and exchanged gunfire.
Meanwhile, he grabbed his radio and warned everyone to shut down. When the gunmen made their way into the lobby, they hit him as he continued shooting, forcing them to return to the mosque’s parking lot. There he was fatally shot.
Wahl said the shooters went back inside and searched rooms that had been emptied during the lockdown. The gunmen then returned to the parking lot, where they were confronted by Kaziha and Awad. Kaziha managed to call 911 before the gunmen killed the two men outside.
“Our three victims did not die in vain,” Wahl said. “Without the distraction, without delaying the actions of these two individuals, without a doubt, there would have been many more deaths.”
Amid an outpouring of condolences from Muslim leaders and politicians across the country, people in the tight-knit community say they struggle to imagine the Islamic Center without the three men — who were widely seen as central figures who made the mosque feel like home.
Abdullah greeted all visitors to the mosque with a smile and the traditional Islamic greeting in Arabic, “Peace be upon you,” or “peace be upon you,” according to Mahmoud Ahmadi, a longtime attendee. Another friend, Sheikh Othman bin Farouk, said Abdullah was there almost every day and was committed to his wife and eight children.
His daughter, Hawa Abdullah, who was surrounded by family members at a news conference on Tuesday, said her father was loving and supportive, a “best friend” and a role model. She said he took his job of protecting the community so seriously that he sometimes wouldn’t eat during his shifts.
“He wanted to keep his food until after he left the job because he was afraid that if he was on vacation, something bad would happen,” she said.
Abdullah was raised Christian and described in a 2019 YouTube video his journey to discover the Islamic faith after graduating from high school. Farouk said he met Abdullah shortly after he converted to Islam in the 1990s. Recently, they went on a Hajj trip to Mecca together.
Khaled Alexander converted to Islam around the same time as Abdullah almost 30 years earlier. The two men were living together at a different mosque in San Diego at the time, where they helped each other envision how to achieve a meaningful and stable life. Over the years, Alexander said he has watched Abdullah take pride in his ability to take care of his community as a security guard.
“It was his dream job,” Alexander said.
Alexander said he and Abdullah sometimes discussed concerns about rising “anti-Muslim, anti-Black, anti-immigrant” sentiment on television. These sentiments often reached the San Diego mosque directly through hate messages, Hassan said, which led to the hiring of security guards like Abdullah and the installation of cameras.
Alexander said Abdullah “was fully aware of the risks of his job, which is exactly why he chose to do this.”
Hassan said Kaziha, known as Abu Al-Ezz, has been an integral part of the mosque since it was built in the 1980s, and has been serving the community “non-stop” since then.
Hassan and others knew that Kaziha was the first person to call when something went wrong.
“He was the handyman. He was the cook. He was the caretaker. He was the store owner. He was everything,” he said.
Yasser Kazaiha, Mansour Kazaiha’s son, described his father as not only a pillar of society, but “the pillar of our home.”
“He taught us to expect difficulties and overcome them to achieve our individual goals just as he did,” Yasser Kaziha said during a protest on Tuesday evening.
Alexander Mansur has known Kaziha since before Alexander converted to Islam, and he still remembers the first time in the mid-1990s when he was welcomed into Kaziha’s home. Decades later, Alexander said it was difficult to imagine the center without him.
“He was like the father of that space,” Alexander said.
Hassan said that Awad lived across the street from the Islamic Center and attended prayer “every day.”
When he heard the gunfire, Awad ran towards the building where his wife works as a school teacher.
“He left his house trying to go and do something to help,” Hassan said during the vigil.
Alexander said the three men’s actions exemplify the virtues of San Diego’s Muslim community.
“They truly represented everything that is beautiful in Islam and everything that is beautiful in Muslims,” Alexander said.
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This story has been corrected to say that Abdullah had eight children, not nine. It has also been updated to correct the spelling of Nadir Awad’s first name. Rare and not rare.