Muslim killed in Texas as he watched first snowflakes

Crescent International

Jumada' al-Ula' 18, 1436 2015-03-09

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

It is open season on Muslims in the US. In the wake of the triple murder in White Chapel (NC) last month, a recent immigrant from Iraq was shot and killed in Dallas, TX as he watched his first snowflakes in life while his wife took photographs. Islamophobia is running rampant and no Muslim seems to be safe in America anymore.

Dallas, TX, Crescent-online
Monday March 9, 2015, 23:06 pm DST

The US media’s “terror industry” that is geared towards demonizing Muslims and spreading hatred of Islam, has done its work again.

In a shooting eerily reminiscent of the three UNC students who were gunned down in their apartment building execution style, Ahmed Al-Jumaili, a 36-year-old man who recently emigrated from Iraq, was killed on March 4, 2015 as he, his wife and brother took photographs of the first snowflakes outside their apartment in Dallas.

Almost two-dozen people held a vigil for the slain man today (March 9) in Dallas. The news was buried until recently, with no mainstream news outlets covering the hate crime until information spread on social media.

On Twitter, many are posting the question “Why wasn’t this front page news?” along with the hashtag #Muslim lives Matter.

Al-Jumaili’s story is a tragic one. The smiling Iraqi had just rejoined his wife Zahra, who had emigrated from Iraq before him; the couple had left their war-torn country in the hopes of starting a new life in the United States.

Al-Jumaili had stayed behind Zahra in Iraq for a year, working a number of odd jobs in order to save money.

Social media is full of photographs of Al-Jumaili being met at the US airport by his beautiful wife Zahra, who carried posters with loving messages describing her joy at being united with her husband.

Al-Jumaili had been in the United States for 20 days when he was shot.

According to police surveillance tapes, there were two to four men involved in the crime—they were seen walking in the snow close to Al-Jumaili’s complex at the time of the shooting.

Al-Jumaili was outside, rejoicing in the snow he had seen for the first time, as his wife Zahra took pictures.

He died at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Thursday (March 5), and his funeral took place Saturday (March 7) at a mosque in Dallas.

The apartment complex where Al-Jumaili lived was mostly tenanted by immigrants, so there was no reason to have felt trepidation. It is legal to carry guns in Texas, and the conservative politics of Texans has led to a number of cases of Islamophobia.

“It doesn’t matter who you are,” Cheryl Roy, al-Jumaili’s next-door neighbor, told the Associated Press while at Sunday’s vigil.

“It saddens me to know that such violence exists right out your front door.”

A local group has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

CAIR announced Monday afternoon (March 9) that it was offering an additional $7,000 reward, in cooperation with the Dallas-based Murrell Foundation.

The executive director of CAIR’s Dallas chapter, Alia Salem told the cable news network CNN that Al-Jumaili’s wife “is in pieces.”

This has also heightened the fear and insecurity of Muslim Americans, who are still traumatized by the gunning of Deah Barakat, his wife Yusur, and her sister Razan less than a month ago.

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