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FBI investigates Michigan mosque attacksFrom Katy Byron YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(CNN) -- FBI officials are working with local law enforcement agencies to investigate attacks on a Muslim mosque in Hamtramck, Michigan. An incident Sunday is the most recent in a spate of assaults on Islamic individuals and places of worship in the Detroit area. A group of boys around the age of 15 threw shoes at mosque members while they were praying, said Abdul Motlib, president of the Al-Islah Islamic Center. "I feel bad about it, of course. I feel bad because this is a religious place," Motlib, a Bangladesh native and Hamtramck resident of eight years, told CNN that afternoon. Teenage boys, sometimes in groups of five or six, have been harassing members of the large mosque daily in recent weeks, including several muggings in the past two weeks, Motlib said. Boys have thrown rocks at the mosque's windows, and in one instance, struck the mosque's imam, Muhammad Uddin, with a plastic snow shovel, Motlib added. No worshippers were injured Sunday or during any of the other incidents, Motlib said. He said that he contacted the FBI Wednesday after finding local police efforts were not enough. "I hope it'll be OK," Motlib said. "This isn't a store or something. We are going into a mosque to finish our prayers, and we want to come back." FBI Special Agent Dawn Clenney said several agents have been sent to the Hamtramck area to investigate the allegations. FBI investigators were scheduled to meet with Motlib and local police Thursday afternoon. The Detroit metro area ranks fifth nationwide in the number of Muslim residents, according to the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. About 600,000 Muslims live in Michigan, nearly 500,000 of them in the southeastern portion of the state, CAIR said. The Michigan chapter has called for an increased police presence in the area around the mosque. "We are disturbed by the vandalism of the mosque and the high frequency of attacks that have taken place in a very short time span," CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid said in a statement released by his press office. About 15 Muslim merchants have been mugged in the past two weeks in the Hamtramck area, the statement added. "The situation is both tense and troubling," said Harold Core, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. "Tense for the community and troubling for the geographic community." 
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