Alwaght-A lone gunman has shot dead an African-American US State Senator Clementa Pinckney and 8 other people at a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Law enforcement officers told a press conference early Thursday morning that the incident, which happened on Wednesday night, was likely a hate crime directed at certain people. "I do believe this was a hate crime," Police Chief Gregory Mullen said.
Officials described the gunman as a 21-year-old white man with sandy blond hair and a slender build wearing a grey hoodie, blue jeans and Timberland boots.
Pinckney was first elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1997. He has served in the State Senate since 2000.
He was the youngest African-American elected to the legislature. He was first appointed to be a pastor at 18. The slain senator was among those who protested against the police shooting death of unarmed black man Walter Scott.
White North Charleston police officer Michael Slager killed Scott in April, sparking racial tensions in the Charleston region.
South Carolina is home to 19 known hate groups — including two factions of the Ku Klux Klan and four "white nationalist" organizations, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
While police described Wednesday's massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, of nine people at one of the nation's oldest African-American churches as a hate crime, they did not suggest the attack was linked to any group.
The SPLC's database records the distribution of KKK leaflets in a Seneca neighborhood was among four hate crimes committed in the state last year.
Analysts say race crimes such as the Church shooting are a result of the large-scale bigotry that exists against the African-American community in the United States.
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In Focus
Ansarullah
A Zaidi Shiite movement operating in Yemen. It seeks to establish a democratic government in Yemen.
Shiite
represents the second largest denomination of Islam. Shiites believe Ali (peace be upon him) to be prophet"s successor in the Caliphate.
Resistance
Axis of Resistances refers to countries and movements with common political goal, i.e., resisting against Zionist regime, America and other western powers. Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Palestine are considered as the Axis of Resistance.
Persian Gulf Cooperation Council
A regional political u n i o n consisting of Arab states of the Persian Gulf, except for Iraq.
Taliban
Taliban is a Sunni fundamentalist movement in Afghanistan. It was founded by Mohammed Omar in 1994.
Wahhabism & Extremism
Wahhabism is an extremist pseudo-Sunni movement, which labels non-Wahhabi Muslims as apostates thus paving the way for their bloodshed.
Kurds
Kurds are an ethnic group in the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region, which spans adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. They are an Iranian people and speak the Kurdish languages, which form a subgroup of the Northwestern Iranian branch of Iranian languages.
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949.
Islamic Awakening
Refers to a revival of the Islam throughout the world, that began in 1979 by Iranian Revolution that established an Islamic republic.
Al-Qaeda
A militant Sunni organization founded by Osama bin Laden at some point between 1988 and 1989
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