Truck ramming at synagogue being investigated as targeted act of violence against Jewish community: FBI

A suspect is dead after a shooting and vehicle-ramming attack at a Detroit-area synagogue, according to the FBI, which said it is investigating the incident as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.

The Department of Homeland Security identified the suspect as 41-year-old Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon.

Ghazali, who was armed with a rifle, died after a shootout with security at the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, a senior federal law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said earlier.

Nobody inside the synagogue was hurt, and the synagogue noted that all 140 students as well as staff, teachers and “heroic security personnel” were accounted for, according to Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard.

“The security staff did an amazing job, an amazing job,” Bouchard said at a press briefing Thursday evening. “They stopped the threat.”

The sheriff said one synagogue security guard was hit by the suspect’s truck and was “knocked unconscious” but was expected to be OK.

The building became engulfed in fire during the attack, and 30 law enforcement officers were transported to the hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation, according to Bouchard. The source of the ignition remains under investigation, he said.

Ghazali entered the U.S. in May 2011 on an immigrant visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and became a U.S. citizen in February 2016, according to DHS.

Investigators searched a Michigan home associated with the suspect, law enforcement sources said.

A motive for the attack remains under investigation, according to Bouchard and Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office.

READ MORE HERE