ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico: A Muslim immigrant from Afghanistan has been arrested as the prime suspect in the serial killings of four Muslim men that rattled the Islamic community of New Mexico’s largest city, police said on Tuesday.
After days bolstering security around Albuquerque-area mosques, seeking to allay fears of a shooter driven by anti-Muslim hate, police said on Tuesday they had arrested 51-year-old Muhammad Syed, one among the city’s Islamic immigrant community.
Authorities said the killings may have been rooted in a personal grudge, possibly with intra-Muslim sectarian overtones.
All four victims were of Afghan or Pakistani descent. One was killed in November, and the other three in the last two weeks.
A search of the suspect’s Albuquerque home uncovered “evidence that shows the offender knew the victims to some extent, and an inter-personal conflict may have led to the shootings,” police said in a statement announcing the arrest.
Investigators are still piecing together motives for the killings of the four men, Deputy Commander Kyle Hartsock of the Albuquerque Police Department said at a news conference.
In response to reporters’ questions, Hartsock said sectarian animus by the suspect toward his fellow Muslim victims may have played a role in the violence. “But we’re not really clear if that was the actual motive, or if it was part of a motive, or if there is just a bigger picture that we’re missing,” he said.
Syed has a record of criminal misdemeanors in the United States, including a case of domestic violence, over the last three or four years, Hartsock said.
Police credited scores of tips from the public in helping investigators locate a car that detectives believed was used in at least one of the killings and ultimately track down the man they called their “primary suspect” in all four slayings.
Syed was formally charged with two of the homicides: those of Aftab Hussein, 41, and Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, killed on July 26 and Aug. 1, respectively, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina told the briefing.
The latest victim, Nayeem Hussain, 25, a truck driver who became a US citizen on July 8, was killed on Friday, hours after attending the burial of the two men slain in July and August, both of them of Pakistani descent.
The three most recent victims all attended the Islamic Center of New Mexico, Albuquerque’s largest mosque. They were all shot near Central Avenue in southeastern Albuquerque.
The first known victim, Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, a native of Afghanistan, was killed on Nov. 7, 2021, while smoking a cigarette outside a grocery store and cafe that he ran with his brother in the southeastern part of the city.
BULLET CASINGS
Police said the two killings with which Syed was initially charged were tied together based on bullet casings found at the two murder scenes, and the gun used in those shootings was later found in his home.
According to police, detectives were preparing to search Syed’s residence in southeastern Albuquerque on Monday when he drove from the residence in the car that investigators had identified to the public a day earlier as a “vehicle of interest.”
Albuquerque and state authorities have been working to provide extra police presence at mosques during times of prayer as the investigation proceeded in the city, home to as many as 5,000 Muslims out of a total population of 565,000.
The ambush-style shootings of the men have terrified Albuquerque’s Muslim community. Families went into hiding in their homes, and some Pakistani students at the University of New Mexico left town out of fear.
Imtiaz Hussain, whose brother worked as a city planning director and was killed on Aug. 1, said news of the arrest reassured many in the Muslim community.
“My kids asked me, ‘Can we sit on our balcony now?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ and they said, ‘Can we go out and play now?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’” he said.
Afghan immigrant arrested for killings of Pakistani Muslims that shook New Mexico’s Islamic community
https://arab.news/ng3qw
Afghan immigrant arrested for killings of Pakistani Muslims that shook New Mexico’s Islamic community
- 51-year-old Muhammad Syed has a record of criminal misdemeanors, including a case of domestic violence
- Authorities said the killings may have been rooted in a personal grudge within the city’s immigrant Muslim community
Pakistan opposition to continue protest over ex-PM Khan’s health amid conflicting reports
- Pakistan’s government insists that the ex-premier’s eye condition has improved
- Khan’s personal doctor says briefed on his condition but cannot confirm veracity
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s opposition alliance on Monday vowed to continue their protest sit-in at parliament and demanded “clarity” over the health of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, following conflicting medical reports about his eye condition.
The 73-year-old former cricket star-turned-politician has been held at the high-security Adiala prison in Rawalpindi since 2023. Concerns arose about his health last week when a court-appointed lawyer, Barrister Salman Safdar, was asked to visit Khan at the jail to assess his living conditions. Safdar reported that Khan had suffered “severe vision loss” in his right eye due to central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO), leaving him with just 15 percent sight in the affected eye.
On Sunday, a team of doctors from various hospitals visited the prison to examine Khan’s eye condition, according to the Adiala jail superintendent, who later submitted his report in the court. On Monday, a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Yahya Afridi observed that based on reports from the prison authorities and the amicus curiae, Khan’s “living conditions in jail do not presently exhibit any perverse aspects.” It noted that Khan had “generally expressed satisfaction with the prevailing conditions of his confinement” and had not sought facilities beyond the existing level of care.
Having carefully perused both reports in detail, the bench observed that their general contents and the overall picture emerging therefrom are largely consistent. The opposition alliance, which continued to stage its sit-in for a fourth consecutive day on Monday, held a meeting at the parliament building on Monday evening to deliberate on the emerging situation and discuss their future course of action.
“The sit-in will continue till there is clarity on the matter of [Khan's] health,” Sher Ali Arbab, a lawmaker from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party who has been participating in the sit-in, told Arab News, adding that PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan and Opposition Leader in Senate Raja Nasir Abbas had briefed them about their meeting with doctors who had visited Khan on Sunday.
Speaking to reporters outside parliament, Gohar said the doctors had informed them that Khan’s condition had improved.
“They said, 'There has been a significant and satisfactory improvement.' With that satisfactory improvement, we also felt satisfied,” he said, noting that the macular thickness in Khan’s eye had reportedly dropped from 550 to 300 microns, a sign of subsiding swelling.
Gohar said the party did not want to politicize Khan’s health.
“We are not doctors, nor is this our field,” he said, noting that Khan’s personal physician in Lahore, Dr. Aasim Yusuf, and his eye specialist Dr. Khurram Mirza had also sought input from the Islamabad-based medical team.
“Our doctors also expressed satisfaction over the report.”
CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS
Despite Gohar’s cautious optimism, Khan’s personal physician, Dr. Yusuf, issued a video message on Monday, saying he could neither “confirm nor deny the veracity” of the government’s claims.
“Because I have not seen him myself and have not been able to participate in his care... I’m unable to confirm what we have been told,” Yusuf said.
He appealed to authorities to grant him or fellow physician, Dr. Faisal Sultan, immediate access to Khan, arguing that the ex-premier should be moved to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad for specialist care.
Speaking to Arab News, PTI’s central information secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram said Khan’s sister and their cousin, Dr. Nausherwan Burki, will speak to media on Tuesday to express their views about the situation.
The government insists that Khan’s condition has improved.
“His eye [condition] has improved and is better than before,” State Minister Talal Chaudhry told the media in a brief interaction on Monday.
“The Supreme Court of Pakistan is involved, and doctors are involved. What medicine he receives, whether he needs to be hospitalized or sent home, these decisions are made by doctors. Neither lawyers nor any political party will decide this.”
