Sweden’s Largest Mosque Burned

Sweden's largest mosque has been deliberately set ablaze in an arson attack, marking yet another hate crime against the Muslim community in the Scandinavian country.

Police spokesman, Lars Bystrom, said on Monday that Imam Ali Islamic Center in the northern Stockholm suburb of Jakobsberg was badly damaged in the arson attack overnight.

"It seems it was set ablaze from the outside," the TT news agency quoted the spokesman as saying, noting, "Flames were engulfing the outer facade" of the mosque.

Mosque spokesman, Akil Zahari, told the Swedish national public TV broadcaster, SVT, that the center was attended by thousands of faithful worshipers every day.

Several mosques in Sweden have been the target of arson attacks in recent years. Only a few perpetrators have been caught over the attacks.
In April last year, a 31-year-old man was jailed for three years for racially-aggravated arson after admitting to setting fire to a mosque in the southwestern town of Boras.

In January 2015, Swedish anti-racism campaigners protested after a trio of arson attacks on mosques in the Nordic country.
This comes as anti-Islam attacks are on the rise across the US and several European countries.