The New York Times sent a whole passel of reporters to New Mexico to cover the big, developing story of the MAGA bro who was driving around murdering Muslims. But then it turned out to be a Sunni murdering Shi’ites because his daughter had married a Shi’ite. So they wound up writing this story:
Muslim Killings in Albuquerque Stir Sectarian Ghosts
An Afghan family struggled for a foothold in a new home in the U.S. Now one of them is charged with killing fellow Muslims.
By Simon Romero, Miriam Jordan, Ava Sasani and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
Aug. 15, 2022ALBUQUERQUE — Five years ago, Muhammad Syed was eyeing a new life with his family in a new land. They had fled war-torn Afghanistan and resettled as refugees into a small duplex near the airport in Albuquerque. Mr. Syed found work as a truck driver. But then the troubles began.
Coming from a culture where women largely stayed at home, he grew enraged with his wife as she was learning how to drive, grabbing her hair and kicking her out of the car, according to one of several reports of domestic violence the police were called to investigate. A security camera showed him slashing the tires of another woman’s car outside Albuquerque’s largest mosque, and he was banned from coming back to their place of worship.
When his daughter enrolled in college, he tried to force her to bring her brother to class as a chaperone. And when she became romantically involved with an Afghan man from a different branch of Islam — a Shiite, while Mr. Syed and his family were Sunni — he attacked the young man and threatened to kill him, the man later told the police.
“Syed was explosive, violent, always seeking revenge,” said Sharif Ahmadi Hadi, an Afghan immigrant who, together with his brother, opened a halal market serving Albuquerque’s growing Muslim community and knew the Syed family. “We left Afghanistan to get away from people like him. But they followed us here.” …
But only other immigrants are allowed to complain about immigrants.
Though Mr. Syed claimed to have fought the Taliban in Afghanistan, no record of military service has emerged so far. After arriving in the United States in 2016, the family struggled to make ends meet, according to an Afghan friend who visited their home on numerous occasions. Mr. Syed, who had worked as a cook for a construction company in Afghanistan, eventually became a truck driver, though it was unclear how often he worked.
Why was the killer allowed into the United States?
