Muslims in the U.S. have expressed fear and anger over what they say is a mounting anti-Muslim sentiment among some of the country's population following the spate of recent terror attacks around the world.

Some American Muslims say the attacks -- first in Paris, then more recently the shootings that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California -- have added to the rise of an anti-Islamist attitude that may boil over into even more violence in the future.  

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A Muslim couple is accused of carrying out the massacre in San Bernardino last Wednesday, and evidence so far gathered by federal authorities point to a connection to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

In the wake of the killings, Muslim communities in the U.S. have reported a wave of death threats, assaults and vandalism against people of their faith unlike any they have seen since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, reports the New York Times.

"Groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda are trying to divide our society and terrorize us," said Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in a news conference held in Los Angeles last Thursday. "Our message to them is that we will not be terrorized and we will not be intimidated."

Some analysts, however, say fears that cultural and religious prejudice may lead to further violence are not unfounded.  In an interview with CNN shortly after the shootings in San Bernardino, criminologist Casey Jordan suggested that the killers may have carried out the massacre in response to workplace harassment due to their heritage.  

The political rhetoric occasioned by the forthcoming U.S. elections have apparently not helped.  After the terror attack in Paris, for instance, republican presidential candidate Donald trump backed calls to put American mosques under surveillance and register all Muslims in the US.

Lawyer Rabia Chaudry of the Maryland-based New American Foundation meanwhile said she kept her seven-year old daughter home from her private Islamic school after news of the San Bernardino shootings broke for fear of an anti-Muslim backlash.  She said she was angry at the people who carried out the massacre. 

"And I'm angry at how this is being politicized," Chaudry added. "Everything boils down to: 'We fear Muslims. And they shouldn't be here.'"

In fact, the recent killings in San Bernardino have added fuel to a debate that has thrown the Obama administration's back against the wall as it struggles to defend both its  immigration and national security policies.  

In a rare address broadcast from the Oval Office last Sunday, President Barrack Obama urged a calm and circumspect attitude in the aftermath of the massacre, saying ISIS does not speak for all Muslims.

"Let us not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear," he added.

Still, many Muslims in the U.S. appear to be bracing for even worse times ahead for people of their faith.

"When a Muslim American commits a murder, their religion is brought front and center," says human rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar. "With anyone else, [it's] a crazy, kooky loner."

TagsAnti-Muslim sentiment, religious prejudice, San Bernardino massacre, US