The man who drove a truck into a Michigan synagogue was inspired by Hezbollah, the FBI said
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A man who crashed his truck into a Detroit synagogue earlier this month was carrying out an attack inspired by the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah and wanted to cause as much damage as possible, the FBI said Monday.
Ayman Ghazali made a video before the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, saying he wanted to “kill as many as possible,” said Jennifer Runyan, head of the FBI in Detroit, who announced the new information more than two weeks later.
Ghazali, 41, sat in the parking lot for several hours on March 12 before crashing his Ford F-150 into the doors and hallway of the preschool, hitting a security guard. He then exchanged gunfire with another security guard before fatally shooting himself. None of the 150 children and workers were injured.
“It was an act of terrorism inspired by Hezbollah that intentionally targeted the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan,” Runyan said.
He cited videos and other images found on Ghazali’s social media accounts where he embraces revenge and Hezbollah’s terrorist ideology. Runyan said he searched Michigan synagogues and Jewish cultural sites in the days leading up to the attack before settling on Temple Israel, even checking the lunch hour.
Runyan said there was no way to know if Ghazali knew the children would be there at the time.
Ghazali’s Ford F-150 was loaded with explosives and containers holding more than 30 liters, or 113 liters, of fuel. A fire broke out in the truck’s engine but it did not explode.
US Attorney for the Detroit area Jerome Gorgon noted that Hezbollah in 1983 drove a large truck bomb into the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.
“That’s exactly what this terrorist did a few weeks ago in our backyard,” Gorgon said, speaking to Runyan.
The ex-wife called the police
Ghazali’s ex-wife had called Dearborn Heights police at the time of the attack to warn that he appeared distraught and suicidal after losing several family members in an Israeli airstrike days earlier in his neighborhood in Lebanon, according to a 911 call. The strike comes days after Iran’s war with Israel and the US began on Feb. 28.
The Israeli military said his brother, Ibrahim Ghazali, who was killed in the airstrike, was a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon. US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate committee that Ayman Ghazali has family ties to “the leader of Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah was founded in 1982 during the Lebanese civil war. The US has designated Hezbollah as a terrorist group since 1997.
Hezbollah is also a political party, with legislators in the Lebanese parliament, and has had representatives in many Lebanese governments for decades.
The Michigan synagogue that was attacked is part of Reform Judaism, the largest branch of the religion in North America, which emphasizes progressive values such as social justice and gender equality. According to the Union for Reform Judaism, Temple Israel’s congregation is the second largest in the denomination.
Founded in 1941 in Detroit, the synagogue moved to suburban West Bloomfield in the 1980s and has more than 12,000 members, according to the temple’s website.
The attack was the latest in a recent spate of attacks on religious buildings, raising fears among religious leaders and worshipers around the world.
