The Washington Post has investigated an incident in which "partially burned copies of the Koran had been left in a shopping bag by the center's front door" [see previous post]. The Islamic Center of Blacksburg is the mosque in question.

A member of the police was reported as saying, "We are taking it very seriously and are looking at all possibilities," including whether this amounts to a hate crime. In addition to the involvement of the local police department, "The FBI's Roanoke office is assessing the situation."

Representative of Islamic advocacy groups are adamant that this incident was motivated by hate:

Laila Al-Qatami, of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said "she found the Koran incident... 'shocking' and urged police and the FBI to determine whether it was motivated by hate." Ibrahim Hooper, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said "It's hard to see a scenario where it would not be bias-related."