Man arrested for arson in US city

A homeless man has been arrested and charged with arson for a fire that destroyed an Islamic community centre in the US city of Houston.

Darryl Ferguson, 55, who lives near the centre, has been arrested and charged with felony first degree arson for the fire, Xinhua quoted fire officials as saying Monday.

Ferguson admitted setting fire to the building but investigators did not discuss a potential motive. They said he acted alone.

The fire was started Friday in a building in the Quba Islamic Institute in southeast Houston.

From the beginning, the institute believed the fire was set on purpose as investigators found an accelerant present at the site of the blaze.

The Texas office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil liberties advocacy organisation, has called on state and federal authorities to investigate the fire as a possible hate crime.

The incident occurred after three Muslim students were shot and killed by a white neighbour in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Though police said preliminary inquiries indicated the murder was probably motivated by a parking dispute, the victims' families insisted it was a hate crime and called for an FBI inquiry into the case.

The consecutive events have sparked concerns among Muslims living across the US that the victims and the Islamic centre were targeted because of their religion.