AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.Muslims pointed to a rise in overt hatred online, political attacks and harassment in the months before the killing of three people outside an Islamic center.Listen · 9:37 min Families outside the Islamic Center of San Diego where shooters killed three people this week.Credit...John Francis Peters for The New York TimesMay 20, 2026, 10:57 a.m. ETThe young men who killed three people outside a San Diego mosque complex this week had expressed hatred for all types of people, inspired by vitriol and conspiracy theories they found online, law enforcement officials said. But it was Muslims they chose to target.To some, the killings seemed like an inevitable result of a swell of Islamophobia in the United States and around the globe. Anti-Muslim rhetoric on the right has become louder, with Republican politicians raising concerns about new Muslim schools and growing Muslim communities, and at the most extreme, suggesting Muslims don’t belong here.Muslema Purmul, 43, whose children attended school on the mosque campus, said her 12-year-old son was feeling gloomy, angry and sad. “Then he said something that really hurt us,” Ms. Parmul said, her voice breaking. “He said, ‘I feel unwanted.’”Ms. Purmul, a longtime member of the community who knew all three of the shooting victims, said that her son had gone on to observe, “If this were to happen to anyone else, everyone would make a much bigger deal about it.”Hatred against Muslims is a longstanding problem. But the escalating conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, the war in Iran, and the reverberations of both throughout American politics, have ushered in a new phase of overt discrimination and fears of violence. Politicians like Representative Randy Fine of Florida have enthusiastically embraced Islamophobia, saying it is rational and more of it is needed.President Trump himself has a history of criticizing Muslims and Islam, and has recently posted about the war in Iran in inflammatory terms, including a message on Easter in which he promised that “a whole civilization will die.” In another message he signed off, “praise be to Allah.”Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT