A Texas man went next door with a rifle and fatally shot five of his neighbors, including an 8-year-old boy, after they asked him to stop firing rounds in his yard because they were trying to sleep, authorities said Saturday.

The suspect, identified as 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, remained at large more than 18 hours after the shooting and authorities warned that he might still be armed. The attack happened just before midnight Friday near the town of Cleveland, north of Houston, on a street where some residents say it is not uncommon to hear neighbors unwind by firing off guns.

San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said Oropeza used an AR-style rifle, and as the search for him dragged into Saturday evening, authorities had widened their efforts to as far as “10 to 20 miles” from the murder scene. He said Oropeza may still have a weapon but that he believes authorities have the rifle used in the shooting.

Capers said they found clothes and a phone while combing a rural area that includes dense layers of forest but that tracking dogs had lost the scent.

“He could be anywhere now,” Capers said.

Capers said the victims were between the ages of 8 and 31 years old and that all were believed to be from Honduras. All were shot “from the neck up,” he said.

The attack was the latest act of gun violence in what has been a record pace of mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, some of which have also involved semiautomatic rifles.

The mass killings have played out in a variety of places — a Nashville school, a Kentucky bank, a Southern California dance hall, and now a rural Texas neighborhood inside a single-story home.

Capers said there were 10 people in the house — some of whom had just moved there earlier in the week — but that that no one else was injured. He said two of the victims were found in a bedroom laying over two children in an apparent attempt to shield them.

A total of three children found covered in blood in the home were taken to a hospital but found to be uninjured, Capers said.

FBI spokesperson Christina Garza said investigators do not believe everyone at the home were members of a single family. The victims were identified as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8.

The confrontation followed the neighbors walking up to the fence and asking the suspect to stop shooting rounds, Capers said. The suspect responded by telling them that it was his property, Capers said, and one person in the house got a video of the suspect walking up to the front door with the rifle.

The shooting took place on a rural pothole-riddled street where single-story homes sit on wide 1-acre lots and are surrounded by a thick canopy of trees. A horse could be seen behind the victim’s home, while in the front yard of Oropeza’s house a dog and chickens wandered.

Rene Arevalo Sr., who lives a few houses down, said he heard gunshots around midnight but didn’t think anything of it.

“It’s a normal thing people do around here, especially on Fridays after work,” Arevalo said. “They get home and start drinking in their backyards and shooting out there.”

Capers said his deputies had been to Oropeza’s home at least once before and spoken with him about “shooting his gun in the yard.” It was not clear whether any action was taken at the time. At a news conference Saturday evening, the sheriff said firing a gun on your own property can be illegal, but he did not say whether Oropeza had previously broken the law.

Capers said the new arrivals in the home had moved from Houston earlier in the week, but he said he did not know whether they were planning to stay there.

Across the U.S. since Jan. 1, there have been at least 18 shootings that left four or more people dead, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University. The violence is sparked by a range of motives: murder-suicides and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings; and workplace vendettas.

Texas has confronted multiple mass shootings in recent years, including last year’s attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde; a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019; and a gunman opening fire at a church in the tiny town of Sutherland Springs in 2017.

Republican leaders in Texas have continually rejected calls for new firearm restrictions, including this year over the protests of several families whose children were killed in Uvalde.

A few months ago, Arevalo said Oropeza threatened to kill his dog after it got loose in the neighborhood and chased the pit bull in his truck.

“I tell my wife all the time, ‘Stay away from the neighbors. Don’t argue with them. You never know how they’re going to react,’” Arevalo said. “I tell her that because Texas is a state where you don’t know who has a gun and who is going to react that way.”

China is “waging a war" on Islam in East Turkistan and “committing genocide" against Uyghur Muslims, said a report by the Center for Uyghur Studies (CUS).

The report, titled “Islamophobia in China and Attitudes of Muslim Countries”, highlighted the state-sponsored Islamophobia by the Chinese regime with a particular focus on China’s Islamophobic policies in East Turkistan.

The report also examined China’s “disinformation” campaigns in the Islamic World and the attitudes of Muslim-majority countries on China’s “war" on Islam. It analyzed the “systemic and historic Islamophobic policies" of the Chinese Communist Party that seek to “sinicize” Islam and Muslims under its rule since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

“Today, the Chinese regime is waging a war on Islam in East Turkistan and committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims. However, the Islamic World is yet to recognize the real nature of the Chinese regime due to the mass disinformation campaign the Chinese regime is carrying out among Muslim countries,” said Abdulhakim Idris, Executive Director of Center for Uyghur Studies.

The report also documents the various aspects of China’s “war on Islam” in East Turkistan throughout the last seven decades, and most recently since 2017. It also examines China’s “disinformation” campaigns in the Islamic World and various propaganda practices the Chinese regime deploys to prevent Muslims from voicing getting alarmed by China’s religious persecution of Muslims.

The report ends with a chapter on the failure of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on the Uyghurs and the attitudes of Muslim-majority countries towards the Uyghur Genocide.
With the release of this report, Idris said the CUS hopes to shed light on China’s Islamophobic policies and educate Muslims to see the real face of the Chinese regime. “We have also examined China’s propaganda attempts in the Islamic World and exposed them with facts. We hope more Muslims will be educated on China’s religious persecution of the Uyghur Muslims and stand up to the most Islamophobic regime in the world today,” he said.

Zionist occupation authorities have started plans to confiscate 70 Palestinian homes in the Old City of the southern occupied West Bank governorate of Hebron.

Director of the Hebron Construction Committee Imad Hamdan said the Zionist occupation plans to hand over the Palestinian homes to Zionist settlers.

Hamdan added: "The "Israeli" raid of Nasreddine Building is the start of the implementation of the "Israeli" plan," reiterating that the Palestinians "are the genuine owners of these homes and shops."

At the same time, he stressed that Palestinian ownership of these buildings is protected by local and international laws, which guarantee the safe and secure residence of citizens and prevent forced expulsion.

Meanwhile, Palestinian activist in Hebron Issa Amro criticised the Construction Committee's "weak response" to the Zionist occupation plans, stressing: "The start of the implementation of the Zionist plan, disclosed early this year, sounds a dangerous alarm."

Amro stated: "The forced expulsion of Palestinians out of Nasreddine Building, which is located in the most sensitive places in the Old City, is not an incident to pass without any official action."

Amro accused the Hebron Construction Committee, a Palestinian government body, of coordinating the theft of Palestinian property with the Zionist occupation authorities.

The activist condemned the silence of the Hebron Construction Committee over the demolition of six Palestinian shops by Zionist settlers in the heart of the city a couple of days ago, stating that the committee has a large budget and is able to do much more for the protection of Palestinian property in the city.