Three people killed as two teenagers open fire at a mosque in San Diego

Two teenage shooters opened fire at a San Diego mosque on Monday, killing three men in an attack police are investigating as a hate crime. The two shooters later died a few blocks away from the mosque due to self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

There was no specific threat made against the Islamic Center of San Diego but authorities found evidence that the suspects engaged in “generalised hate rhetoric," San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said.

He declined to give more details, but said the “circumstances that led up to this” would come out in the days to come.

Before the attack, officers were already looking for one of the teenagers since his mother called police concerned that her son was suicidal and had run away, police said. There were weapons missing from the home and the mother's vehicle was gone.

The search took on even more urgency as police learned that he was dressed in camouflage and with an acquaintance — details that were unexpected for someone about to die by suicide, he said.

Police began using whatever technology they could to find the 17- and 18-year-old, including automated license plate readers. The department dispatched authorities to a mall near where the car had been tracked by police, and officers alerted a school where at least one of the suspects had been a student, Wahl said.

Among those killed was a mosque security guard, who police believe “played a pivotal role” in keeping the attack from being “much worse”.

“It’s fair to say his actions were heroic,” the San Diego Police Department chief said at a later news conference. “Undoubtedly he saved lives today."

A family friend identified the guard as Amin Abdullah, a well-known face at the mosque who had been working there for more than a decade.

“He wanted to defend the innocent so he decided to become a security guard,” said Shaykh Uthman Ibn Farooq, who had spoken with Abdullah's son.

The centre is the largest mosque in the San Diego County area and includes the Al Rashid School, which offers courses in Arabic language, Islamic studies and the Quran for students ages five and up, according to its website.

Police responded within four minutes of being called. As they arrived, gunshots rang out a few blocks away where a landscaper was shot at but uninjured. The shooters were found dead in a vehicle stopped in the middle of a road nearby, Wahl noted.

Aerial TV footage showed more than a dozen children holding hands and being walked out of the parking lot of the centre as it was surrounded by scores of police vehicles.

The mosque is in a neighbourhood of homes, apartments and strip malls where many Muslims in the area live and with Middle Eastern restaurants, shops and markets have a high presence.

The mosque's director, Imam Taha Hassane, called it “extremely outrageous to target a place of worship.”

“All the places of worship in our beautiful city should always be protected,” he said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy groups in the US, condemned the shooting.

“No one should ever fear for their safety while attending prayers or studying at an elementary school,” said CAIR-San Diego Executive Director Tazheen Nizam in a statement.

“We are working to learn more about this incident and we encourage everyone to keep this community in your prayers.”

US President Donald Trump also weighed in on the situation after reporters asked him about it shortly after reports emerged, where he denounced the shooting incident and called it a “terrible situation.”