The armed suspect who drove a vehicle into the hallway of a large Michigan synagogue complex that includes a school had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon just last week, an official said on Friday.
A potential mass-casualty event was averted when security guards already in place at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township on the outskirts of Detroit killed the driver before any harm could come to the synagogue’s staff, teachers and 140 children at the early childhood center there on Thursday afternoon.
The suspect was later named by the authorities as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, who was born in Lebanon and had become a naturalized US citizen.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is leading the investigation, described the attack on one of the nation’s largest Reform synagogues as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community.
Ghazali came to the US in 2011 on a family-related visa as the spouse of a US citizen and was granted US citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
An Israeli airstrike killed four people in the eastern Lebanon town of Mashgharah on 5 March, Lebanon’s state agency and the Lebanese Health Ministry reported. A woman was also wounded.
Coinciding with US and Israeli strikes on Iran that began late last month, Israel also once again began attacking its neighbor Lebanon in an effort to eradicate the Iran-backed Hezbollah militancy.
The bombardment of Lebanon, which is continuing, marked a significant escalation in Israel’s growing offensive there, which began after Hezbollah fired missiles and drones into Israel in early March in retaliation for the attacks on Iran, as the conflict has mounted and widened rapidly.
A local official in Mashgharah, in central Lebanon, told the Associated Press on Friday that Ghazali’s two brothers and a niece and nephew were killed at their home in the 5 March airstrike just after sunset as they were having their fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The official, who requested anonymity because he could not publicly discuss details of the airstrike, told the AP that Kassim and Ibrahim Ghazali were killed, along with Ibrahim Ghazali’s children, Ali and Fatima. Ibrahim Ghazali’s wife was seriously wounded and remains in the hospital, the official said.
The official said that Kassim Ghazali was a well-known soccer coach and personal trainer while Ibrahim was a school bus driver in the village. The official added that Ayman Ghazali’s father was in the US and returned to Lebanon recently.
Thursday’s incident at the Michigan synagogue resulted in the vehicle driven by the suspect catching on fire and black smoke could be seen billowing from the building.
One security officer was hit by the vehicle and knocked unconscious but did not suffer life-threatening injuries, the local Oakland county sheriff, Mike Bouchard said. And 30 law enforcement officers were treated for smoke inhalation.
Cassi Cohen, director of strategic development at Temple Israel, was in the hallway where the crash happened. She described hearing a loud bang and said she grabbed a few staff members, ran into her office and locked the door.
“When I heard the crash, I knew it was bad,” Cohen said.
She said the crash happened near a classroom and, in addition to the children, there were also more than 30 staff members in the synagogue.
Rabbi Arianna Gordon, from Temple Israel, thanked the security team, law enforcement and early childhood teachers for getting the children out safely and reunited with their parents amid the chaos and fear.
About a dozen parents sprinted to get their children soon after authorities cleared the building. Other families were reunited at a nearby Jewish Community Center.
Allison Jacobs, whose 18-month-old daughter is enrolled in Temple Israel’s day care, said she got a message from a teacher saying the children were okay even before she knew what happened.
“There are no words. I was in complete and utter shock,” she said.
Synagogues around the world have been on edge and further ramping up security since the US and Israel launched a war with Iran with missile strikes on 28 February.
Donald Trump said on Thursday: “It’s incredible that things like this happen” and called the Michigan attack a “terrible thing”.
However, Steven Ingber, the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, said: “I’d love to say that I’m shocked, that I’m surprised, but I’m not.”
Oakland county is Michigan’s second-largest county with roughly 1.3m people. The majority of Detroit-area Jewish residents live there. Temple Israel has 12,000 members, according to its website.
At a similar time to the attack on the synagogue, a gunman killed one and injured two in a shooting at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
That incident could also have resulted in more carnage after the suspect opened fire in a classroom of students doing military training with the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a college-based program, but he was subdued and killed by some of the students.
The suspect was later identified by authorities as Mohamed Jalloh, a former member of the army national guard who pleaded guilty in 2016 to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State. The authorities said he shouted the Arabic phrase “Allahu Akbar”, meaning Allah is the greatest, or God is great and the FBI is investigating the shooting as an alleged act of terrorism.
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