US Navy removes images of gun-toting Muslim women as targets from SEAL training range

Washington, July 4 (ANI): The U.S. Navy has said that it will remove images of Muslim women as targets at a SEAL training range in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) had asked the Pentagon to pull the images after a daily newspaper, The Virginian-Pilot, published a photo of a cardboard target, a cutout of a Muslim woman holding a gun and wearing a hijab.

In a letter addressed to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Nihad Awad, CAIR's executive director, said: "The target is 'offensive and sends a negative and counterproductive message to trainees and to the Muslim-majority nations to which they may be deployed'."

According to New York Daily News, CAIR also raised concern about verses of the Quran that were hanging on the wall behind the cutout of the Muslim woman

Hour after the council's request, the Navy announced it had got rid of the controversial target.

"We have removed this particular target and Arabic writing in question from the range in the near-term, and will explore other options for future training," Lt. David Lloyd, a spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Group 2, which oversees SEAL teams 2, 4, 8 and 10 at the base, said.

The council commended the Navy for removing the targets, but added that the military still needs to work harder to battle 'Islamophobia'.

"There are all kinds of people all over the world trying to do us harm," CAIR spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper said, adding, "Why would you use this particularly image in training people how to kill?"

"It creates the impression, we believe, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that you should view Muslim women in headscarves with hostility and suspicion," he added. (ANI)