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Yemeni man shot dead in California

Sukhjit Purewal in San Jose

Abdo Ali Ahmed arrived in the United States 35 years ago when he was a teenager eager to work hard for a better life.

When he was shot dead at his convenience store in a small rural town of California's Central Valley, he was a 51-year-old American citizen, father of eight children and quite possibly another victim of the blind backlash reverberating through the US and the world following the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC.

Ahmed, a Yemeni Muslim, was working alone at his Reedley convenience store shortly after 1600 PDT on September 29 when two youths reportedly entered his store and shot him several times.

Bleeding badly from his gunshot wounds, including a fatal one in his abdomen, he stumbled into the Hawg Jawz bar that adjoins the store, and fell to the floor.

The two youths ran out of the store and jumped into a white sedan, in which two other youths were waiting for them, according to eyewitness reports.

Ahmed's store, the East Reedley Store, does not have a security camera.

No arrests have been made in the case. Reedley is located about 25 miles southeast of Fresno. With a population of 21,000, Reedley, like most towns in the Central Valley, is an agricultural community.

The Fresno County sheriff's department has released descriptions of the four possible suspects who were seen fleeing from the store and a composite sketch of one of them, Lieutenant Jose Flores told rediff.com

The four suspects are described as young Hispanic males. One of them may have been as young as 13, Lt Flores said.

The Yemeni consulate in San Francisco has issued a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators. "The Yemeni people are peaceful, hard-working people," Consul Mansoor Ismael told rediff.com

"All Yemenis are against terrorist attacks. I don't understand why this happened to this innocent person."

If the sheriff's department determines that Ahmed's murder was a hate crime, his name will be added to the list of victims who have been targeted because of their religion or appearance. Balbir Sodhi of Mesa, Arizona, a Sikh convenience store owner, was killed because his killer perceived him as 'the enemy'.

At this point, Lt Flores said, investigators haven't ruled out any possibilities, nor are they jumping to the conclusion that this was a hate crime.

"We have to work on the facts," he said. "We don't know if this was a robbery that went bad or what."

But no money was taken from the register and Flores said the sheriff's department knows it might be dealing with a hate crime. "If this was a hate crime then we will prosecute it as such."

Ahmed's story is that of a hardworking immigrant. After working as farm labourer he bought his store about a decade ago. He worked 14 hours a day, seven days a week.

There are an estimated 25,000 Yemenis residing in California.

Several days before the killing, Ahmed had received a death threat in the form of a note left on his windshield when he and his wife Fatima were shopping at a nearby grocery store.

According to Ismael, Ahmed was not the only one who ignored the threats. Ismael said other Yemenis in the Fresno area had told him of verbal and even a couple of written death threats, but didn't report it to the police.

Authorities and the consulate have urged the Yemenis not to keep quiet about intimidation any longer. "Bigots are ignorant and are angry about what happened. They are beating up innocent people, whether they are Middle Eastern, Muslim, Sikhs and even Hispanic," said Flores.

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