Merchant's death may be backlash
YEMENIS ANXIOUS IN WAKE OF KILLING
BY KAREN DE SÁ
Mercury News

REEDLEY -- Homicide investigators, FBI agents and a Middle Eastern diplomat converged Monday on a tiny San Joaquin Valley convenience store where a Yemeni shop owner was gunned down in what police are calling a possible backlash killing in the wake of last month's terrorist attacks.

Abdo Ali Ahmed received a death threat last week because of his heritage, and on Saturday he staggered from his store about 4 p.m. into an adjoining tavern with a severe gunshot wound to his midsection. A car full of teenagers sped away moments before Ahmed fell to the bar's wooden floor, just paces from the house where he lived with his wife and six children.

The Fresno County sheriff and the FBI are investigating the case as a possible hate crime, one of more than 100 reported to the FBI since the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks in New York and Washington.

Police say witnesses were outside the East Reedley convenience store at the time, but nobody saw the shooting or could say whether Ahmed's killers uttered racial slurs.

Two youths entered the store and fired more than one shot at the 51-year-old shopkeeper, who was apparently behind the counter. The youths then ran to a car where two others waited. No money was stolen from the store, and nothing was disrupted, Fresno County sheriff's Lt. Greg Burton said. Ahmed's relatives say a safe and a bag of cash were left untouched beneath the cash register.


A note on the windshield

A few days before the shooting, Ahmed and his wife, Fatima, found a death threat on the windshield of their car while they were parked at the local Save Mart grocery store.

The note included anti-Arab statements, sheriff's Sgt. Toby Rien said, and Ahmed threw it away.

Ahmed also had told friends and family that he had received taunts and threats at his store and from customers at the neighboring bar since the terrorist attacks. His advice to family and friends was to brush it off.

``I am an American citizen,'' Ahmed would say, according to family members, when someone taunted him or asked if he were related to Osama bin Laden -- the Saudi exile militant and chief suspect in last month's attacks. Bin Laden also has been linked to last October's bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 U.S. servicemen.

Ahmed told his nephew: ``Whatever they say to you, ignore it,'' said Ali Saleh, the nephew, who flew in Sunday from Louisiana, where he works at a convenience store. ``He didn't take it seriously, because he was a peaceful person. He looked after everybody.''

Saleh was one of dozens of family members from across the country who have gathered among the plum, peach and nectarine orchards about 25 miles southeast of Fresno.

Some are sleeping in their cars outside Ahmed's home.

Relatives from Yemen are expected to arrive for a service Thursday at a mosque in Fresno, where hundreds from the Central Valley's Yemeni community are expected to gather.

``We felt things were getting better,'' said Monsoor Ismael, the Yemeni consul from San Francisco who visited Ahmed's family and met with local authorities Monday. ``But when we heard of this incident last Saturday, it made us afraid again.''


$10,000 reward offered

The Yemeni Consulate is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the suspects -- four men identified as between the ages of 13 and 18.

Police have stepped up patrols to provide safety for 20 local businessmen of Middle Eastern descent, Reedley police Lt. Steve Wright said. After Ahmed's killing, Wright said, police learned that threats against the minority community have been widespread.

``Sad is probably not the right word,'' Wright said. ``It cuts me right to the core. For a couple of people using the flag for patriotism to come up with these criminal intentions, it's just not what America is about.''

Reedley Mayor Joe Rhodes said it's too early to sum up the killing as a hate crime.

``The majority here want to believe it was a robbery,'' said Melissa Barry, who tends bar at Hawg Jaws, which is attached to Ahmed's convenience store. ``You expect this in the big towns, but not here. Not in the sticks.''

Ahmed's family is receiving condolences from near and far. A top Yemeni government official called Monday from the Middle East. Neighbor Cora Alexander wiped back tears after paying her respects.

Ahmed's 11-year-old son, Yasser Ahmed, tried to open the family store for business on Monday while his mother stayed home inconsolable, family members said.

Yasser's 5-year-old brother, Ali, waited by the door, expecting his father to cross the dusty lot to bring him candy.

``You know when you meet someone so good?'' Alexander said. ``He was just a good person.''

Ahmed moved to the United States about 35 years ago and went to central California to work as a farm laborer before buying his shop a decade ago. Family members say he worked 14-hour days, seven days a week.


Making news abroad

Ahmed's killing in this rural crossroads some 2,900 miles from the wreckage of the World Trade Center is finding its way to the front pages of Yemen's newspapers and the newscasts of the Arabic equivalent of CNN.

Bin Laden sympathizers are using such accounts to stir up anti-American sentiments, said Hisham Melhem, a longtime Washington correspondent with the As-Safir newspaper in Beirut, Lebanon.

``In the region many columnists and editorial writers are talking about a `campaign against the Muslim community' . . . as if it were somehow sanctioned by the authorities,'' Melhem said. ``Some of the writings report harassment on a massive scale.''

But Melham said reporting on the backlash has been balanced out somewhat in the Middle East as the Bush administration and other U.S. leaders continue to urge Americans to treat Arab-Americans and Muslims with respect.

The Yemeni Consulate in San Francisco sent out a warning last week about the possibility of threats against the 20,000 to 25,000 people of Yemeni descent who live in California, advising them to call police if they were harassed.

``Yemen is against any terrorists or any group that would do anything like what happened in Washington,'' said Ismael, the Yemeni consul. ``There are bad people all over the world. There are bad people in Yemen. There are bad people in America.''

Abdo Ali Ahmed wasn't one of those bad people, said his brother-in-law Mahmood Al-Shaibi.

``The problem is no one can bring Ahmed back to his family,'' Al-Shaibi said, ``and no one can take care of them like the father could.''

for your information

Thanks, Ann Coulter -- now go write another column about how America needs to be ethnically cleansed of everyone but WASPy-looking anorexics....

I'm sorry, but this attack is the last straw. I am sickened, SICKENED by this. Yeah, "loose lips sink ships" -- you can say THAT again....

Our courts should execute all 1st degree murderers, regardless of motive, period!

and so on I now support full Hate Crime Laws and am grateful for our FBI.

And under the right circumstances, it's a great way to start a "hot" social and civil war too.

Our courts should execute all 1st degree murderers, regardless of motive, period!

That's the whole point.
PC in defining crimes is a such a waste of time, and the unintended consequences are worse than the problem being addressed.

And under the right circumstances, it's a great way to start a "hot" social and civil war too.

What are you threatening?

There are thugs and murders all over the place..just looking for an excuse to unlease their fury..BUT

I have a problem with this man being made a poster child for the "oppressed" arabs..sorry..

Reedley isn't far from here. I'm sorry to read this, and hope that the murderers are apprehended, convicted, and (slim chance in California) executed.

It's not WASPs who are doing these crimes. In most cases, the ones that aren't Tawana Brawley inspired fakes, the perps are members of an American minority that harbors grudges against other minorities that are more successful. Check it out. In Detroit there are hostilities between the black and arab communities. In Georgia black Americans have attacked black Sudanese immigrants because the attack on America gave them an excuse to do so. And so on.

YEMENIS ANXIOUS IN WAKE OF KILLING BY KAREN DE SÁ

why doesn't someone just ask her?

dep

I've spent more time attacking the FR Neanderthal Anti-Arab, Anti-Muslim, Anti-Foreigner crowd than anyone else, possibly, but "Hate Crime" laws were, are, and always will be, idiotic.

I don't see how it makes a difference whether it was a robbery or they shot him because he's an Arab.....everyone responsible should be locked up forever or executed either way. Hate crime laws are pointless symbolism. They won't do anything to deter crimes that regular laws do...and our "regular" laws should have the harshest penalties for murdering, attacking, or harassing anyone, regardless of the reason behind it.

Why is the Yemeni Consulate offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the suspects, when they impeded and thwarted the investigation of the attack on the USS Cole in their own country?

I have no animosity towards peaceful muslims, and hope these perpetrators are found and sentenced to death, but the Yemeni Consulate involvement is hypocrisy in its highest form.

I'm sorry, but this attack is the last straw.

And the 6.000+ that died in NYC were just a bunch of pikers? ALL murders are hate crimes, regardless of who the victims are. It's wrong that this man was murdered, but to be more outraged by this one killing than by the killing of many thousand innocent people shows a real lack of proportion on your part. You are either dense, or a liberal.

I hope they catch the criminals who did this.

Fine, you're sickened by this, even though we don't know if it's a hate crime. The perp will almost certainly be caught and possibly executed, as he should be.

However, the gist of what you've written in antiwar.com since 9/11 has been that an arrogant imperialistic America got what was coming to her. You have focused like a laser beam with righteous outrage on incidents of harassment of foreigners, identifying so strongly with the Muslim community that you felt you looked Middle Eastern, even describing in detail perceived hostile looks from a blond woman (obviously one of those perfidious WASPs). No putting the incidents of harassment in context (99% of Middle Eastern-looking persons here I dare say have not experienced so much as a sideways glance). No outrage over the murder of 6,000 mostly American citizens by illegal aliens. Just expressions of admiration for the little guys who brought down the giant.

I used to think you had something to say in decrying our tendency to play world policeman, but you've gone way off the anti-American deep end in writing about events related to 9/11.

"I've spent more time attacking the FR Neanderthal Anti-Arab, Anti-Muslim, Anti-Foreigner crowd than anyone else, possibly, but "Hate Crime" laws were, are, and always will be, idiotic....Hate crime laws are pointless symbolism."

.................

I couldn't agree with you more about the nonsense that "hate crimes" represent -- I mean, isn't a person's thought life (no matter how repellent) the LAST refuge that a state should invade? Look at how the Left on campus will immediately trot PC offenders into "sensitivity training" to be harangued by the victim group they have offended.

About racist neanderthals on Free Republic -- you hit the nail on the head. I've been fighting this dreck too for 6 weeks now. While I see modest improvement in the tone of Middle Eastern threads from late August, when I first started raising hell about FR posts about Palestinian suicide bombers, the sordid truth is that Free Republic unfortunately remains a sounding board for anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian "skinheads with keyboards" (SKWIKEYS).

I have been horrified at the level of open race hate on these threads -- for example, open calls (supported by "attaboy" posters) for selectively murdering reproductive-age relatives of suicide bombers. Not to mention -- let's see-- nuking, firebombing and napalming Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. I've had several FReepers e-mail me about how they find many Middle Eastern threads on Free Repbulic to be "really scary."

I've objected vehemently to these skinheads. Unfortunately, the moment you convey a sympathetic ear to the plight of the Palestinians -- OR if you object to their extermination by whatever lurid means the FReeper can summon up -- you're attacked as anti-Semitic, a "Pallie"- or "Musli"-lover ... and so on.

The posts of several of them are so extreme that they could only have been written by in-your-face sociopathic thrill killers who would kill Palestinians and Arabs in a heartbeat if they ever had the chance.

I've suggested that FReepers sickened by these threads set up their own watch lists and alert the FBI and other government agencies to open calls for murder. In my view, some of the more appalling FR posters deserve full-time FBI attention.

I had one journalist tell me that she finds Free Republic to be a good barometer of "hate" in the conservative political community. Her magazine has received repeated death threats from FReepers. Frankly, until I ran across the late-August Middle Eastern threads in question, I had no idea these people -- who sound like bottom-crawling Klannies from the 1930s -- even EXISTED any more.

Unfortunately they do -- and what bothers me is that Free Republic in some respectsd is attracting sociopathic posters and creating a "sociopathic consensus" in which posters can openly advocate killing, expelling or extermninating "Pallies" or "PalPots -- or whatever FReeper race argot in fashion -- and can do so WITHOUT being confronted by other FReepers. That's actually what prompted me to erupt two months ago -- the fact that nobody on the threads seemed to be bothered by this in-your-face-and-up-yours race hate.

I am most grateful for your words.

It's not WASPs who are doing these crimes.
Sir,
I must inform you that it is has been in almost every case White males who have done the shootings, firebombings, car driving into masjids etc.

You are probably going to flame me, but that's fine.

What about the persecution and ultimate executions of Christians in other countries. Is that not a hate crime? I do not feel we should lower our standards or morals to these countries, but we must be aware that at least we live in a Christian nation where these crimes are not tolerated. "Love thy neighbor as thy ownself" is something all Americans should be remembering right now.

You are full of it, "uscit": check out my column (posted here) entitled "Kill 'Em -- And Get Out." No, the US did not "have it coming," but the US government has been conducting a foreign policy virtually guaranteed to provoke a violent response. That Americans are now attacking their fellow citizens, who happen to be of Arab descent, is a commentary on the times (and the country) we are living in....

I must inform you that it is has been in almost every case White males who have done the shootings, firebombings, car driving into masjids etc.

How convenient - now you can focus YOUR hatred.

Sir, I must inform you that it is has been in almost every case White males who have done the shootings, firebombings, car driving into masjids etc.

Wrong. The truth seeps through even CNN from time to time. The large majority of cases involves non-whites attacking arabs and in the case of the Christian Sudanese "perceived" moslims.

The know-nothing PC crowd just assumes that hate crimes are all done by white males.

James Michael Herrick who allegedly firebombed a Pakistani restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah is White. Eric Richley who allegedly was the driver of Car Slams Into Mosque At 80 MPH at the Islamic Center of Greater Cleveland is White. Frank Roque who allegedly shot to death Balbir Singh Sodhi in Mesa, Arizona is White.
Adam Lang, 76, of Huntington Station, who allegedly tried to run over a woman with his car while he was screaming hate at her at Walt Whitman Mall in New York is White. Patrick Michael Cunningham who allegedly attempted to burn down Idriss Mosque then firing a gun at the Muslims in Seattle, Washington is White.
In almost every case it has been White men.

How convenient - now you can focus YOUR hatred.

Sir,
I have no hatred towards anyone.

You've noted five incidents of "hate crimes" - five violent crimes in a nation of 280 million people.

Are these the ONLY crimes against arabs committed? How many other non-arabic murders were there during this period?

While any violent act against innocents is deplorable, your angry focus on white males is indeed revealing.

your angry focus on white males is indeed revealing.
Sir,
I am not angry. A poster previously was suggesting that it was some minorities that were doing all the crimes against Arab and Muslims and so on. I merely desired to inform that it was not the case. I listed 5 crimes this is true. It is only a representative sample of the hundreds that have occurred since the 11th of September. Other murders, other firebombings, other shootings, other assaults have been committed. It is only in the interests of accuracy that I mentioned that they were White and overwhelmingly so. This is aid to understanding. Also why the hatred voiced on Free Republic is so dangerous to our nation.
I would no more blame all Americans of White background than you would blame all Americans who are Arabs or Muslims.

True, the poster who claimed the offenders were all non-WASPS was wrong.

You should have simply corrected him and left it at that.

But then you went overboard & claimed the "thousands" of hate crimes committed against arab-americans in the past three weeks were "overwhelmingly" committed by whites. By "overwhelmingly" I assume you mean disproportionally.

There's no way you or I or anyone could know the ethnicities of these offenders.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Muslim community has scared everyone as to their intentions here by their refusal to condemn Hammas, and other organizations by name, it indicates in some peoples minds a silent support and agreement with terrorist organizations and their actions, especially the ones on 9-11.

While I feel awful for this poor hard working man here 35 years, a citizen, just trying to live his life and love his family, I wish the Muslim community would step up to the plate and do some serious PR work to allay the fears surrounding them. We don't need anymore tragedy of any kind right now.

for your information

Thank you. An interesting Thread, I've read as far as #29 from MissAmericanPie.

I find the posts decrying the misdirected hatred more representative of what I had come to expect of Free Republic.

I believe this was a backlash murder.

Of course, it's not terrorism.

Americans don't engage in terrorism, and muslims, by popular definition, cannot be victims of terrorism because we're the perpetrators of it. Never mind that fifteen million American citizens are a bit more reluctant to go out in public, many more American citizens are now reluctant to fly or ride a Greyhound bus and what terrorizes the majority is terrorism, what terrorizes a minority -- particular this minority -- is just what we have coming.

That's the sense of what I've been reading at Free Republic for the last month.

It is not remotely -- in any sense -- what I and the muslims I know personally have experienced from our neighbors. This opportunistic thrill murder in California -- a great bastion of racism, I know, I was raised there -- is just as representative of the American people as the Towers Terror is representative of the muslims of the world -- not at all.

Not in any sense whatever.

But these Threads are not infested with skinheads.

"In the region many columnists and editorial writers are talking about a 'campaign against the Muslim community' ... as if it were somehow sanctioned by the authorities," Melhem said. "Some of the writings report harassment on a massive scale."

There has been a campaign against the muslims in America for a long time. It is not "sanctioned" by the authorities, it has been directed largely at "the authorities." The minds of Americans have been poisoned by a campaign of demonization that reaches into every information media: public school curriculae, entertainment, news reporting, governmental policy formulation, legislation, rumor mill gossip -- everywhere. These are not "skinheads," they are otherwise respectable people with jobs, families, social standing, and certain special interests with which their neighbors sometimes sympathize. Especially in the first few hours after something like the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City, until the real perpetrators are identified.

I saw in a Thread here at Free Republic that McVeigh "may have been linked to Osama bin Laden." The demonization never stops, it never gives up, reality gets turned inside out to promote it.

They work on newspapers' advertising departments, threatening the withdrawal of advertising in retaliation for "biased" reporting -- that is, reporting that does not include their bias. They work on politicians with "early" campaign contributions and "soft" money. They work on police agencies with "citizen information" and "tips." They work on libraries by theft of donated subscriptions and library materials on Islam and muslims and particularly Palestine. It is a campaign, it is organized, it is directed, and it is well-funded and continual. It is here at Free Republic in what I call the Anti-Islam Brigades, and they are not skinheads, they are our neighbors. And they're scared stiff.

We have to get past the propaganda and get at the facts and the underlying realities. Despising the despicable is not the answer. Finding out the truth is the answer, and that takes effort and interest in getting at it. And it takes a renunciation of and resistance to anger -- anger and good judgment do not go together, there is no "peaceful coexistence" of that variety. Those infested with hatred for others on some ethnic or similar basis are to be pitied, not hated, anger is their burden, it burns their hearts.

Americans are finding out the truth. All over the country. The terror war has failed its first intention, which was to pit us against each other, and it has failed its second intention, which was to provoke our government into a precipitous attack on people innocent of the terror. It succeeded in terrorizing those who hate, those who have waged this campaign to demonize others.

Another martyr -- from my perspective, that's good news for him and he will be praying for his family, he's merely gone ahead of them. Another one killed for no other reason than that he was muslim. I can't buy that, I can't earn that, I can't desire that, all I can do is envy him. And I do. I'm still here, the target of organized campaigns to demonize me and stir up hatred against me because I am muslim.

Isn't that curious, that there is such a concerted effort to make Americans turn in every direction but toward the muslims to find out about Islam?

But it's backfired -- Americans want to know. And thousands upon thousands if not millions are finding out for themselves.

That's the American way.

Not thrill-seeking teenagers out for a romp to kill an Ay-rab just for the hell of it.

the Muslim community has scared everyone as to their intentions here ... it indicates in some peoples minds a silent support and agreement with terrorist organizations and their actions, especially the ones on 9-11.

It would be interesting to know whether they'd been reading Travis McGee and MissAmericanPie at Free Republic.

Who are the real terrorists here?

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.