Federal agents raided the home of the individual responsible for the recent attack on a synagogue and preschool in Michigan, as they work to determine the motive behind the incident. The man, identified as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a 41-year-old naturalized US citizen from Lebanon, drove a car filled with explosives into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township before opening fire.
Images obtained by The Post show FBI agents conducting a late-night raid at Ghazali's residence in Dearborn Heights. The agents were observed carefully searching the property, including peering through the open garage and surrounding the house as part of their thorough investigation.
Ghazali was fatally shot by armed security guards at the synagogue after crashing his vehicle into the building and initiating gunfire with a rifle. The car, suspected to be loaded with explosives such as mortar shells, caught fire during the chaos, resulting in severe burns to the attacker's body.
Despite the violent nature of the incident, none of the approximately 140 children present at the temple's preschool were harmed. One security guard was injured during the attack but is expected to recover, while around 30 police officers and emergency responders were hospitalized due to smoke inhalation from their efforts to search for potential victims inside the smoke-filled building.
Authorities suspect that Ghazali may have carried out the attack in response to the loss of his family members in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon. Sources revealed that Ghazali's family, including a niece and nephew, were killed in a strike on their home in Machghara, Lebanon, approximately ten days before the synagogue assault. Ghazali's brothers may have also been among the casualties.
Ghazali, born in Lebanon in January 1985, immigrated to the US in May 2011 and became a naturalized citizen in February 2016. Court records indicate that he was divorced in 2024 and had at least one child. Ghazali was employed at a local Middle Eastern restaurant in Dearborn Heights.
Law enforcement is treating the attack as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community, given the location of Temple Israel in Oakland County, which has a significant Jewish population. Authorities had been on high alert due to escalating tensions related to the US, Israel, and Iran, and have since increased security measures around synagogues and other places of worship in the region as the investigation unfolds.
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