Man who crashed truck into Michigan synagogue inspired by Hezbollah, FBI says

A man who crashed his pickup truck into a Detroit-area synagogue earlier in March was inspired by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and had sought to inflict as much damage as he could on Jewish people, the FBI said Monday.

Ayman Ghazali made a video just minutes before the attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, saying he wanted to “kill as many of them as I possibly can” in the large Jewish congregation, said Jennifer Runyan, head of the FBI in Detroit, who announced the new information.

Ghazali, 41, sat in the parking lot for a few hours on March 12 before smashing his Ford F-150 through doors and into the hallway of an early childhood education area, striking a security guard. He then exchanged gunfire with another guard before fatally shooting himself. None of the 150 children and staff was injured.

It was a “Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan,” Runyan said.

He sent two final videos to a sister overseas about 10 minutes before launching the assault, she said.

“This is the largest gathering place for Israelis in the State of Michigan in the United States,” Runyan quoted him as saying in Arabic. “I have booby-trapped the car. I will forcefully enter and start shooting at them. God willing, I will kill as many of them as I possibly can.”

The FBI cited videos and other images discovered on Ghazali’s social media accounts in which he embraced vengeance and Hezbollah’s militant ideology. Runyan said he searched for Michigan synagogues and Jewish cultural sites a few days before the attack before settling on Temple Israel, even looking up the lunch hour.

Runyan said there was no way to know whether Ghazali knew children would be present at the time.

Ghazali bought an AK-style rifle and 300 rounds of ammunition from a gun store on March 9 and practised at a shooting range, she said.

His Ford F-150 was stocked with commercial-grade fireworks and containers holding more than 30 gallons, or 113 litres, of gasoline. The truck caught fire after barrelling into the synagogue, Runyan said, though there was no explosion.

Detroit-area U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon noted that Hezbollah in 1983 drove a massive truck bomb into U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon.

“That is exactly what this terrorist did a few weeks ago in our backyard,” Gorgon said, speaking along with Runyan.

Ex-wife called police

The FBI did not release the entirety of Ghazali’s videos and materials but showed screengrabs and quotes from several of the recordings.

Ghazali, who lived in Dearborn Heights, Mich., came to the U.S. in 2011 on an immediate relative visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and was granted U.S. citizenship in 2016, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

His family ties to Hezbollah were publicly disclosed soon after the synagogue attack. Israel’s military said a brother, Ibrahim Ghazali, was a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon who was killed there on March 5. A Detroit-area mosque held a memorial service for the brother and other family members who also died.

Ghazali’s ex-wife had called police in Dearborn Heights around the time of the attack to warn that he seemed distraught and suicidal after losing family during the Israeli airstrike, according to 911 audio. The strike came days into the Iran war with Israel and the U.S. that began Feb. 28.

Hezbollah was founded in 1982 during Lebanon’s civil war. The U.S. has designated Hezbollah as a terrorist group since 1997.

Hezbollah is also a political party, with lawmakers in the Lebanese parliament, and has had representatives in most Lebanese governments for decades.

Temple Israel, which has more than 12,000 members, 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. The congregation is the second-largest, according to the Union for Reform Judaism.

The attack was the latest in a recent spate of attacks targeting religious buildings, intensifying fear among religious leaders and worshippers worldwide.