Arson attacks against Berlin Mosques continue

Following the news late last year of an attack on a Mosque in Stoke-on-Trent a police investigation is underway in Berlin due to an arson attack on a Mosque after a witness saw flames at the entrance in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Detectives said there was a message left at the site of the attack at the Ahmadiyya community in the Wilmersdorf district of Berlin but at the time of writing have not revealed what it said.

The entrance to the Mosque had been set on fire; a passer-by noticed the flames at around 1.45am on Saturday and attempted to put out the blaze himself. Police officers arriving on the scene managed to put out the flames using a fire extinguisher from their vehicle.

The attack is the is the latest in a line of such incidents over the last six months which saw six similar incidents of attacks against Mosques - the Shitlik mosque (pictured above) on Columbiadamm was attacked in June, twice in August and again in November, while the Neukölln Al-Nur mosque was attacked in November and an Islamic cultural centre in Tempelhof was targeted in December.

Criminal detectives are now on the case, trying to determine whether there is a link between this attack and arson attacks on other mosques during 2010.

No-one was hurt in any of the attacks, but damage was done in every case.

German Muslim leaders have time and again voiced strong concern over the ongoing bombings against mosques, calling for stepped up security measures but the center-right government of Chancellor Angela Merkel has tried to downplay the new wave of anti-Muslim hate crimes, an escalation of Islamophobia in Germany.

Leon Green