What to know about a deadly attack by teen gunmen on a San Diego mosque

Audio By Carbonatix

An attack by two teenagers on a San Diego mosque left a community mourning its victims, Muslim leaders calling for increased security and investigators parsing white supremacist writings by the suspects that expressed hate toward various religions and races.

The teens killed three men and then themselves after trying to storm the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday. A mosque leader said the attack could have been much worse if not for one of the victims — a beloved security guard — shooting back and using his radio to initiate a lockdown, helping to keep the attackers away from the 140 children who were just steps away.

Investigators said Tuesday they recovered more than 30 firearms and ammunition as they searched homes associated with the teens.

Here's what to know about the attack.

Mark Remily, the lead FBI agent in San Diego, said Tuesday that the suspects met online and discovered they both lived in the San Diego area. It remained unclear how they became radicalized, he said.

The Associated Press obtained writings of both suspects, including hateful rhetoric toward Jewish people, Muslims and Islam, as well as the LGBTQ+ community, Black people, women, and both the political left and right. Both express beliefs that white people are being eliminated, and one writes about mental health struggles and being rejected by women.

The teens "didn’t discriminate on who they hated,” Remily said.

Police identified the attackers as Caleb Liam Vazquez, 18, and Cain Lee Clark, 17.

The mother of one of the suspects called the police around 9:40 a.m. Monday, saying her son was suicidal and had run away. The search for the teen took on more urgency as police learned that he was dressed in camouflage, had taken multiple weapons from the home, and was with an acquaintance — facts that were not consistent with someone about to die by suicide, said San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl.

Officers were still interviewing the mother about places the teens might be when the shooting began at the Islamic Center, the largest mosque in San Diego County.

As the shooters barged into the lobby of the mosque, they wounded the 51-year-old guard, Amin Abdullah, who used his radio to start a lockdown protocol and kept firing at them, the police chief said. He forced them back outside, where they fatally shot him. Abdullah was a father of eight who had worked at the Islamic Center for a decade.

The attackers returned inside and began searching through rooms that were emptied during the lockdown, Wahl said. At some point, two others who were killed drew the gunmen farther away from the building.

Mosque leaders identified the other victims as Mansour Kaziha, 78, and Nadir Awad, 57. Kaziha, known as Abu Ezz, “was everything” to the Islamic Center — handyman, cook and caretaker, said Imam Taha Hassane. Awad's wife is a a teacher at the school, and he lived across the street from the mosque.

The shooting was the latest in a string of attacks on houses of worship and comes amid rising threats and hate crimes targeting the Muslim and Jewish communities since war began in the Middle East, forcing increases in security.

Kaiser Aslam, Muslim chaplain at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said reactions in his community have been “heavy.”

“In a lot of imam chats or admin chats that I’m a part of, there’s an effort to make sure that everyone recognizes we need increased security,” he said.

Condemnation of the attack came from many quarters, including the chief of the United Nations, who stressed “the urgent need to confront hatred and intolerance in all their forms,” his spokesman said.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “stands in solidarity with the Muslim community and calls for a full investigation into the attack,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

___

Associated Press reporters Julie Watson in San Diego, Eric Tucker in Washington; Mariam Fam in Winter Park, Florida; Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles; Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama; and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.