Main U.S. Muslim group cancels Virginia banquet over bomb and loss of life threats : NPR

ARLINGTON, Va. — A nationwide Muslim civil rights group stated Thursday it’s transferring its annual banquet out of a Virginia resort that obtained bomb and loss of life threats presumably linked to the group’s concern for Palestinians caught within the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, canceled plans to carry its twenty ninth annual banquet on Saturday on the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, simply throughout the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The group, which has used the resort for a decade, will transfer the banquet to an undisclosed location with heightened safety, the group’s assertion stated.

“In latest days, based on the Marriott, nameless callers have threatened to plant bombs within the resort’s parking storage, kill particular resort workers of their houses, and storm the resort in a repeat of the Jan. sixth assault on the U.S. Capitol if the occasions moved ahead,” the assertion stated.

Arlington police stated in an e-mail that the division was investigating a Thursday morning report from the resort that it obtained nameless cellphone calls, “some referencing threats to bomb,” concerning the CAIR occasion.

Emails looking for remark from the FBI, which CAIR stated is also investigating, and the Marriott resort chain weren’t instantly answered late Thursday night time.

A separate banquet deliberate for Oct. 28 in Maryland additionally was cancelled and will likely be merged with Saturday’s occasion, CAIR stated.

The threats got here after CAIR up to date banquet programming to concentrate on human rights points for Palestinians. The group has began a web based marketing campaign urging members of Congress to advertise a ceasefire in Gaza.

“We strongly condemn the intense and disgusting threats in opposition to our group, the Marriott resort and its workers,” CAIR Nationwide Government Director Nihad Awad, who’s Palestinian American, stated in a press release. “We won’t enable the threats of anti-Palestinian racists and anti-Muslim bigots who search to dehumanize the Palestinian individuals and silence American Muslims to cease us from pursuing justice for all.”

Hamas militants from the blockaded Gaza Strip stormed into close by Israeli cities on Oct. 7, which coincided with a significant Jewish vacation. The assault killed a whole lot of civilians. Since then, Israel has launched airstrikes on Gaza, destroying whole neighborhoods and killing a whole lot of Palestinian civilians.

There have been considerations the conflict will encourage violence within the U.S. Final week, police in main cities elevated patrols, authorities put up fencing across the U.S. Capitol and a few faculties closed. However regulation enforcement officers harassed there have been no credible threats within the U.S.