Houston arson investigators probe fire at Islamic center

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Houston Fire Department arson investigators are probing a blaze that destroyed a building at an Islamic institute in the city on Friday, officials said. There has been no official determination yet of what caused the fire that hit the Quba Islamic Institute in the pre-dawn hours of Friday, fire officials said, adding no one was injured in the incident. The Texas office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called for authorities to investigate a possible bias motive for the fire that the group sees as an apparent arson attack. The Houston fire comes days after a gunman shot dead three young Muslims near the University of North Carolina, riling Muslim activists who have demanded that U.S. state and federal authorities investigate the detained suspect for possible hate crimes. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin and Camilo Smith in Houston; Editing by Eric Beech)