Man who crashed pickup into Michigan synagogue was inspired by Iran-backed Hezbollah, FBI says

DETROIT (AP) — A man who crashed his pickup truck into a Detroit-area synagogue earlier in March was carrying out an attack inspired by the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah and had sought to inflict as much damage as possible, the FBI said Monday.

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

Ghazali, 41, sat in the parking lot for a few hours on March 12 before smashing his F150 through the 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. No one else among 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.

She cited videos and other images discovered on Ghazali’s social media accounts in which he embraced vengeance and Hezbollah’s terrorist 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 time for lunch.

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

Ghazali's Ford F150 was stocked with commercial-grade fireworks and containers with more than 30 gallons of gasoline. There was a fire in the truck's engine, but no explosion.

Detroit-area U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon noted that Hezbollah terrorists 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.

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 several family members during the Israeli airstrike days earlier in his native Lebanon, according to 911 audio. The strike came days into the Iran war with Israel and the U.S. that began Feb. 28.

Israel’s military said a brother, Ibrahim Ghazali, who was killed in the airstrike, was a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon. National intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate committee that Ayman Ghazali had family ties “to a Hezbollah leader.”