IDF says Michigan synagogue suspect’s brother was Hezbollah commander killed in airstrike
The Israeli military said on Sunday that he is the brother of Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, who is the suspect carried out last week’s attack on a synagogue in Michiganhe was a Hezbollah commander who was “eliminated” in a strike last week.
In a statement released on social media, the Israel Defense Forces said that Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali is the one responsible for the operation of weapons in this unit in the terrorist group appointed by America.
“The unit is responsible for launching hundreds of rockets at the Israeli people during the war,” the IDF said, adding that Ibrahim Ghazali was killed in an airstrike on a Hezbollah military base last week.
A Lebanese official, who asked not to be identified because he cannot publicly discuss details of the airstrike, confirmed to the Associated Press that Ibrahim Ghazali was killed. The official told AP that Ibrahim Ghazali’s children, Ali and Fatima, and his brother, Kassim, were also killed in the strike that hit their home just after sunset.
A freelance reporter working for CBS News in Lebanon was told by sources there that the two brothers are members of Hezbollah’s rocket unit in southern Lebanon.
The FBI’s Detroit office, which is investigating the synagogue attack, declined to comment to CBS News about the Israeli army’s claims about Ibrahim Ghazali.
“Out of respect for the ongoing investigation, we will continue to refrain from commenting on its substance,” FBI spokesman Jordan Hall said in an email Sunday.
Ayman Ghazalia 41-year-old US citizen is suspected of raiding a truck. The Temple of Israel at a synagogue outside Detroit on Thursday after learning that four members of his family had been killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon, officials said.
Ayman Ghazali waited in his car outside Temple Israel for about two hours with a gun, explosives and cans of liquid believed to be gasoline, before crashing into the building where more than 100 children were studying, according to authorities.
He first fired his gun through the windshield, shooting the armed security guard. He died by suicide after he got stuck in his car and the engine caught fire, FBI Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Runyan said Friday.
No one else was killed in the attack, officials said, but a security guard was injured, and several officers were treated for smoke inhalation.
I The FBI he called it “a deliberate act of violence against the Jewish community.”
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Ayman Ghazali came to the US legally in May 2011, sponsored by his ex-wife, who is an American citizen. He became an American citizen in 2016.
The Michigan synagogue attack happened the same day that a former member of the Army National Guard, who served years in prison for trying to help the Islamic State, opened fire in a classroom at Old Dominion University in Virginia, killing one person and wounding two.
