San Diego mosque shooting victims remembered as heroes and community leaders

By Christina MoralesJill Cowan and Neil VigdorJill Cowan reported from San Diego.Thursday May 21, 2026

Each morning, Amin Abdullah made the same careful rounds before heading across town to his day job as a security guard at the Islamic Center of San Diego. He would arrive at a small, aging mosque, walk its edges with a flashlight and check every dark corner, said his friend Khalid Alexander. Then he would step inside to pray.

For Mr. Abdullah, a Muslim convert, the work was more than a paycheck. It was a duty he felt called to embrace after the deadly attacks on Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand left him deeply shaken.

On Monday, that sense of duty cost him his life. Mr. Abdullah was killed while trying to protect children inside the Islamic Center when gunfire erupted at the mosque’s door.

“Keeping people safe in the spaces he was in was always his top priority,” Mr. Alexander said.

“He died exactly the way he would have wanted to,” the friend added.

Two other members of the community were also killed. On Tuesday, several Muslim organizations identified them as Mansour Kaziha, the mosque store manager and center caretaker, and Nader Awad, a worshiper who raced to the center to help.

Authorities said the three men were shot and killed Monday by two teenagers who later took their own lives in a vehicle blocks away. Investigators are treating the mosque attack as a hate crime, and the shooting has intensified concern about Islamophobia in the United States.

According to Chief Scott Wahl of the San Diego Police Department, the attack began when both suspects sprinted past Mr. Abdullah and into the Islamic center on Monday, likely not noticing the security guard at first. Once Mr. Abdullah spotted them, he immediately used his radio to call for a lockdown and then opened fire on both gunmen.

The shooters fired back, and Chief Wahl said Mr. Abdullah “continued to engage in a gun battle with the two suspects.”

“His actions — without a doubt — delayed, distracted and ultimately deterred these two individuals from gaining access to the greater areas of the mosque, where as many as 140 kids were within 15 feet of these suspects,” Chief Wahl said. “Tragically, he died in that gun battle.”

Sam Hamideh, 46, whose son attends school at the Islamic Center, said a friend who is a police officer first alerted him to the shooting.

His first instinct, he said, was to call his son’s teacher and then reach out to another friend: Mr. Abdullah, whom many called “Brother Amin.”

Before he could place that call, however, he learned that Mr. Abdullah had been killed. “That was very crushing,” Mr. Hamideh said. “You have your finger on his name on the dial.”

Mr. Hamideh said Mr. Abdullah had eight children of his own.

“He took his job so seriously to the point sometimes he didn’t even want to eat,” said Hawaa Abdullah, one of Mr. Abdullah’s daughters. “He wanted to save his food until after he left the job because he was afraid that if he went on his break, something bad would happen.”

Once Mr. Abdullah triggered the lockdown Monday, Islamic Center officials were able to secure the campus and keep the suspects from reaching classrooms and other school buildings, Chief Wahl said.

At roughly the same time, two other community members appeared in the parking lot outside. Mr. Awad had come from his nearby home, worried about congregants, students and teachers — including his wife. Mr. Kaziha, a longtime handyman and familiar presence at the Islamic Center, was also outside.

Inside, the teenage gunmen moved room to room but found the doors locked or the spaces empty because of the lockdown, Chief Wahl said. That is when Mr. Awad and Mr. Kaziha drew their attention.

The suspects rushed outside, cornered the two men in the parking lot and shot them dead, Chief Wahl said. The diversion was enough to push the shooters out into the open, where they decided to flee just moments before police arrived.

“I want to be very clear, all three of our victims did not die in vain,” Chief Wahl said. “Without distracting the attention, without delaying the actions of these two individuals, without question, there would have been many more fatalities yesterday.”

Abdul Saleem, a worshiper who visits the mosque about twice a week and whose five children once attended the school, knew all three men. He had worked alongside Mr. Awad for more than 20 years, first at a taxi company and later at a limousine service.

“I couldn’t stop crying yesterday, but I’m kind of jealous about them,” said Mr. Saleem, 75, who came to the United States from Afghanistan in 1981. “They died in the best way that they defend other innocent people, and I wish I was one of them. And God chooses them.”

Mr. Kaziha, known in the community as Abu Ezz, managed the mosque store for nearly 40 years, according to Muslim organizations. He was also regarded as the mosque’s caretaker and, Mr. Saleem said, was a husband, the father of five children and a grandfather.

Imam Taha Hassane said at a news conference on Tuesday that Mr. Kaziha was the first person to call 911.

For more than two decades, Mr. Hassane said, he had depended on Mr. Kaziha to keep the mosque running — as store manager, handyman and cook. Homayra Yusufi, a senior policy strategist at the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, a refugee advocacy group, said Mr. Kaziha and his wife were known for preparing Syrian lamb rice for thousands of worshipers and for helping buy supplies for Afghan refugees.

“He was everything,” Mr. Hassane said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do at the Islamic Center without his daily assistance. We miss him. The entire community misses him.”

Candice Reed contributed reporting from San Diego. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

A correction was made on May 19, 2026: An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the 46-year-old father who knew the victims. He is Sam Hamideh, not Hanideh.