Michigan Synagogue Attacker Is Naturalized Citizen Whose Hezbollah-Linked Relatives Died in Lebanon Airstrike

The armed man who rammed his vehicle into a Michigan synagogue in a terror attack on Thursday was a naturalized citizen from Lebanon who had family members killed in a recent Israeli airstrike.Ayman Mohamad Ghazali came to America in 2011 on a visa available to foreign-born spouses of American citizens. He was granted citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security.Ghazali was killed in an exchange of gunfire with security guards at Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomfield. One guard was injured when he was hit by the vehicle used in the attack.Ghazali’s vehicle caught fire and filled the building with smoke but more than 100 children who were in the temple’s early childhood center were evacuated from the building unhurt.An Israeli airstrike on March 5 killed four people in the eastern Lebanon town of Mashgharah, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Among the dead were Ghazali’s two brothers and a niece and nephew, a town official told the Associated Press. His sister-in-law was reportedly seriously wounded in the attack.The two brothers were known to be members of Hezbollah, the local official told NBC News, but it was unclear if they were the target of the airstrike. The official said Mr. Ghazali’s father had been in the United States but had returned to Lebanon before the airstrike.The Dearborn Heights mayor, Mo Baydoun, confirmed in a Facebook post that Ghazali was a resident of the township and that he had lost several family members in the airstrike.The special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, Jennifer Runyan, called the attack a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.”Governor Gretchen Whitmer said that antisemitism is a growing issue.“Yesterday’s attack was antisemitism. It was hate. Plain and simple,” Ms. Whitmer said at a Friday morning news conference. “We will fight this ancient and rampant evil. We will stand together as we do it. We will call it out.”The governor also praised the synagogue security guards who stopped the attack. “These heroes threw themselves in harm’s way,” Ms. Whitmer said.At the same press conference, Senator Elissa Slotkin praised the efforts of the private security and staff at Temple Israel as well as first responders and local law enforcement.“If they had not all done their jobs almost perfectly, we would be talking about an immense tragedy here today with children gone. This could have been much, much worse,” she said.Ms. Slotkin said she has a personal connection with Temple Israel and warned that antisemitism on both the right and left in America is a growing problem that must be called out before it becomes violent.The FBI was expected to provide an update on the investigation later Friday.

Michigan Synagogue Attacker Is Naturalized Citizen Whose Hezbollah-Linked Relatives Died in Lebanon Airstrike

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