Mosque Attacks

One Mosque was burned in Texas, and six people were shot dead at a Canadian mosque over the weekend. These incidents followed in the wake of a week of President Trump's executive orders that are being seen as a "Muslim ban" on travel to the USA.

An early-morning fire on Saturday, January 28, 2017, destroyed a Victoria, Texas mosque that was a target of hatred several years ago and experienced a burglary last week.

Meanwhile...

Quebec police said six people were killed and an additional eight were wounded in a shooting at a mosque on Sunday, January 29, 2017.

Some of the wounded were gravely injured, said Christine Coulombe, the Quebec provincial police spokeswoman. Those killed ranged in age from approximately 35 to 70 years old, she said. Thirty-nine people were in the mosque at the time of the attack.

Coulombe initially said two people have been arrested. On Monday, police confirmed that only one was a suspect, and the other individual arrested in d'Orleans was an eyewitness.

The Quebec shooter, who killed 6 in a mosque, is a white male student who made right wing & anti-woman remarks on Facebook. Court clerk confirms the name of the suspect in Canadian mosque attack is Alexandre Bissonnette.

Quebec City Islamic Cultural Center President Mohamed Yangui said the shooting happened in the men's section of the mosque.

Local newspaper Le Soleil said it had obtained information that the suspect was a 27-year-old with "a Québec name," and one had an AK-47 automatic weapon in his possession. Police, however, have not released nor confirmed these details.

A witness told CBC's French-language service Radio-Canada that two masked individuals entered the mosque.

"It seemed to me that they had a Quebecois accent. They started to fire, and they they shot they yelled, 'Allahu akbar!' The bullets hit people that were praying. People who were praying lost their lives. A bullet passed right over my head," said the witness who asked to remain anonymous.

Other mosques in Quebec experienced "incidents" throughout the weekend.

Police protection has been increased around mosques throughout New York City.

This is just the beginning.

Quebec's Alleged Shooter Named Bain

You can't make this up: The shooting suspect has been identified as Richard Henry Bain. Yes, Bain, like in Bain Capital, the company founded by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Bain, which sounds exactly like Bane, was discussed in depth before the appearance of the villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, which was shown at the July 20th midnight showing in the Aurora theater where the shooting occurred.

For my deeper dissection of Bane/Bain, please click here.

Richard Henry Bain now pops up as the suspect in this strange shooting in Quebec.

Was there an attempt on the life of the newly elected future premier, Pauline Marois of Quebec, on Tuesday, September 4, 2012?

An undercover security unit officer is shown in plaid. For more on how plaid showed up in Aurora, in the guise of the mysterious "second gunman" candidate, click here.

Photo: Jean-Francois Lemire.

Voting had just returned the Parti Québécois to power Tuesday. A rally celebrating the Marois (Marios = "dweller at or near a marsh") victory in the historic Quebec election ended in tragedy.  Several shoots erupted from a rifle held by a masked gunman, which resulted in one person killed and another wounded. The gunfire began after an apparent diversion fire was set at the back of the crowded Montreal concert hall, where PQ Leader Pauline Marois was celebrating her minority mandate.

The name of the location of the shooting, The Metropolis, reminded me of 1927 German expressionist science-fiction film by the same name, directed by Fritz Lang.

Photo: Jean-Francois Lemire.

One shooting victim, a 45-year-old man, later died, while another person wounded in the shooting was out of danger. A third person was in hospital, recovering from shock.

The balaclava is also called a a Templar cap.

A large 62-year-old man (shown at top) wearing a black balaclava, black shirt, glasses, shorts, and what was described as a blue bathrobe or housecoat was arrested. The suspect reportedly spoke French with an accent. His two firearms were seized. (On Tuesday, he was named as Richard Henry Bain.)

This shooting was taken seriously by the security units protecting Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois.

It was clearly a political shooting. "The English are waking up, the English are waking up ... It's payback ... Yeah, yeah, that's enough," the man muttered as police officers led him away in handcuffs. Local media reported that he also shouted: "It's gonna be fucking payback!"

Photo: Graham Hughes.

Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois is rushed from the stage by her security team as shooting began as she started to speak to supporters in Montreal on September 4, 2012.

Photo: Rogerio Barbosa.

Photo: Rogerio Barbosa.

Photo: Rogerio Barbosa.

After defeating the Liberals, Marois, 63, who had been severely criticized for campaigning on identity and language themes, had some conciliatory words for Quebec's anglophone and native communities, speaking of their shared history. In a rare move for her, Marois spoke in English to say their rights would be respected.

Nevertheless, she struck a tougher stance towards the rest of Canada, hinting of the future struggle for separation on the horizon.

"As a nation, we want to take ourselves the decisions that affect us. We want a country. And we'll have it."

Marois, however, has said she will only hold a third referendum on independence if a win is assured, which is unlikely, given that barely one in three Quebecers currently support secession.

The party's victory came after allegations of corruption and months of nightly student protests over a planned tuition hike, with polls showing widespread dissatisfaction with nine years of Liberal rule.

The masked Quebec shooting occurred near an anniversary involving other men wearing masks.

At 4:30 a.m., on September 5, 1972, a dozen masked, armed Palestinians of the group calling itself Black September, with the assistance of German neo-Nazis, stormed the Olympic Village, taking Israeli athletes and coaches hostage. The end of the situation on September 6th resulted in the deaths of 6 Israeli coaches, 5 Israeli athletes, 5 members of Black September, and one West German police officer. Photo: Kurt Strumpf