A “destructive device” appears to have caused a Saturday morning explosion at a mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota, police say, and the FBI is now investigating.
The Minneapolis FBI field office is now the lead investigative agency. Police are asking anyone with information to contact the agency.
Deputy Chief Mike Hartley of the Bloomington Police Department said officers received a report about the explosion around 5 a.m. (6 a.m. ET) Saturday. Responding officers found damage to the building and smoke in the area, the police department said in a tweet.
At a news conference Saturday, a witness said the explosion happened around the time of morning prayers. The witness described running outside after the blast and seeing a car driving away.
A spokesman for the Muslim American Society of Minnesota told CNN affiliate WCCO the group believes someone may have thrown something into the window of the mosque imam’s office.
The society’s executive director, Asad Zaman, said the imam’s window was broken and cited a witness who saw someone standing by the window before the explosion.
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is offering a $10,000 reward in the case.
“If a bias motive is proven, this attack would represent another in a long list of hate incidents targeting Islamic institutions nationwide in recent months, ” said Amir Malik, CAIR’s civil rights director in Minnesota.
Law enforcement authorities have not said whether they are investigating the mosque explosion as a hate crime.
